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CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 



Christianity and Property 



AN INTERPRETATION 



BY .'^ 

ALBERT E. WAFFLE 

Author of '•'■The Lord^s Day'^ {$ J, ooo Prize Essay), ^'■The 
Interpreter with His Bible, ' ' etc. 




PHILADELPHIA 
AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY 

1897 



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Copyright 1897 by the 
American Baptist Publication Society 



^rom tbe Society's own press 



PREFATORY NOTE 



The purpose of this essay is to state and inter- 
pret the teaching of Christ and the Holy Spirit on 
the subject of property. The omission of all dis- 
cussion of what has been written by uninspired 
men on economics, labor and capital, socialism, 
and kindred topics, has not been on account of 
entire ignorance of it, but because I have chosen 
to go directly to the fountain-head of truth and 
wisdom. What Christ and the Spirit say is final 
and authoritative. Our task and our privilege is 
to understand and to obey. 

I consecrate this little work to the Lord Jesus, 
''whose I am and whom I serve." I pray that it 
may help to exalt his name and extend his king- 
dom among men. 

A. E. W. 
Albion, N. Y., January, 1897. 



V. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 
The Divine Word, 9 

CHAPTER H 
Acquisition, . . 23 

CHAPTER HI 
Consecration, . , 45 

CHAPTER IV 
Distribution, 60 



CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 



CHAPTER I 

THE DIVINE WORD 



LAY not up for yourselves treasures upon the 
earth, where moth and rust doth consume, 
and where thieves break through and steal : but 
lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where 
neither moth nor rust doth consume, and where 
thieves do not break through nor steal : for where 
thy treasure is, there will thy heart be also (Matt 
6 : 19-21). 

Sell that ye have and give alms ; make for your- 
selves purses which wax not old, a treasure in the 
heavens that faileth not, where no thief draweth 
near, neither moth destroyeth. For where your 
treasure is, there will your heart be also (Luke 1 2 : 

33, 34). 

Be ye free from the love of money; content 

with such things as ye have : for himself hath said, 
I will in no wise fail thee, neither will I in any wise 
forsake thee (Heb. 13 : 5). 

9 



lO CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

And seek not ye what ye shall eat, and what ye 
shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind. For 
all these things do the nations of the world seek 
after : but your Father knoweth that ye have need 
of these things (Luke 12 : 29, 30). 

Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not in- 
herit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived : 
neither . . . thieves, nor covetous, . . nor extor- 
tioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God (i Cor. 
6 : 9, 10). 

Let him that stole steal no more : but rather let 
him labour, working with his hands the thing that 
is good, that he may have whereof to give to him 
that hath need (Eph. 4 : 28). 

And Zaccheus stood, and said unto the Lord, 
Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the 
poor; and if I have wrongfully exacted aught of 
any man, I restore fourfold. And Jesus said unto 
him, To-day is salvation come to this house, foras- 
much as he also is a son of Abraham (Luke 19 : 

8, 9). 

He that hath two coats, let him impart to him 
that hath none ; and he that hath food, let him do 
likewise (Luke 3 : ii). 

And all that believed were together and had all 
things common ; and they sold their possessions 
and goods, and parted them to all according as any 
man had need (Acts 2 : 44, 45). 



THE DIVINE WORD 1 1 

But they that desire to be rich fall into a tempta- 
tion and a snare and many foolish and hurtful 
lusts, such as drown men in destruction and perdi- 
tion. For the love of money is a root of all kinds 
of evil : which some reaching after have been led 
astray from the faith, and have pierced themselves 
through with many sorrows. But thou, O man of 
God, flee these things ; and follow after righteous- 
ness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness (i 
Tim. 6 : 9-11). 

But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira 
his wife, sold a possession, and kept back part of 
the price, his wife also being privy to it, and 
brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles' 
feet. But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan 
filled thy heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to 
keep back part of the price of the land? Whiles 
it remained, did it not remain thine own ? and after 
it was sold was it not in thy power? How is it 
that thou hast conceived this thing in thy heart? 
thou hast not lied unto men but unto God (Acts 

5 : 1-4). 

Charge them that are rich in this present world, 

that they be not highminded, nor have their hope 

set on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who 

giveth us richly all things to enjoy ; that they do 

good, that they be rich in good works, that they be 

ready to distribute, willing to communicate ; laying 



12 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

Up in store for themselves a good foundation 
against the time to come, that they may lay hold 
on the Hfe which is life indeed (i Tim. 6 : 17-19). 

In all things I give you an example, how that so 
labouring we ought to help the weak, and to re- 
member the words of the Lord Jesus, how he 
himself said. It is more blessed to give than to re- 
ceive (Acts 20 : 35). 

Go to now, ye rich, weep and howl for your 
miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches 
are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten. 
Your gold and your silver are rusted ; and their 
rust shall be for a testimony against you, and shall 
eat your flesh as fire. Ye have laid up your treas- 
ure in the last days. Behold, the hire of the labour- 
ers who mowed your fields, which is of you kept 
back by fraud, crieth out : and the cries of them 
that reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord 
of Sabaoth. Ye have lived delicately on the earth 
and taken your pleasure; ye have nourished your 
hearts in a day of slaughter (James 5 : 1-5). 

For what doth it profit a man to gain the whole 
world and forfeit his life? Or what should a man 
give in exchange for his life? (Mark 8 : 36.) 

But seek ye first his kingdom and his righteous- 
ness ; and all these things shall be added unto you 
(Matt. 6 : 33). 

And one out of the multitude said unto him, 



THE DIVINE WORD I 3 

Master, bid my brother divide the inheritance with 
me. But he said unto him, Man, who made me a 
judge or a divider over you ? And he said unto 
them. Take heed and keep yourselves from all 
covetousness : for a man's life consisteth not in the 
abundance of the things which he possesseth. And 
he spake a parable unto them saying, The ground 
of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully : and 
he reasoned within himself, saying, What shall I do 
because I have not where to bestow my fruits? 
And he said. This will I do : I will pull down my 
barns and build greater ; and there will I bestow all 
my corn and my goods. And I will say to my 
soul. Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many 
years ; take thine ease, eat, drink, be merry. But 
God said unto him. Thou foolish one, this night is 
thy soul required of thee ; and the things which 
thou hast prepared, whose shall they be ? So is he 
that layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich 
toward God (Luke 12 : 13-21). 

No man can serve two masters : for either he 
will hate the one and love the other ; or else he 
will hold to one and despise the other. Ye can- 
not serve God and Mammon. Therefore I say 
unto you, Be not anxious for your life, what ye 
shall eat, or what ye shall drink ; nor yet for your 
body, what ye shall put on (Matt. 6 : 24, 25). 

And he lifted up his eyes . . . and said. Blessed 



14 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

are ye poor : for yours is the kingdom of God. . . 
But woe unto you that are rich ! for ye have re- 
ceived your consolation (Luke 6 : 20, 24). 

And behold, one came and said, Master, what 
good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life ? 
And he said unto him. Why askest thou me con- 
cerning that which is good ? One there is who is 
good : but if thou wouldest enter into life, keep 
the commandments. He saith unto him, which? 
And Jesus said, Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not 
commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt 
not bear false witness. Honour thy father and thy 
mother : and. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy- 
self The young man saith unto him, All these 
things have I observed : what lack I yet? Jesus 
said unto him, If thou wouldest be perfect, go, sell 
that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou 
shalt have treasure in heaven : and come, follow 
me. But when the young man heard the saying, 
he went away sorrowful : for he was one that had 
great possessions. And Jesus said unto his disci- 
ples. Verily I say unto you. It is hard for a rich 
man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. And 
again I say unto you. It is easier for a camel to go 
through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to 
enter into the kingdom of God. And when the 
disciples heard it they were astonished exceed- 
ingly, saying, Who then can be saved ? And 



THE DIVINE WORD I 5 

Jesus looking upon them said to them, With men 
this is impossible ; but with God all things are 
possible (Matt. 19 : 16-26; Mark 10 : 17-27; 
Luke 18 : 18-27). 

Be not therefore anxious, saying, What shall we 
eat? or. What shall we drink? or. Wherewithal 
shall we be clothed ? For after all these things do 
the Gentiles seek ; for your heavenly Father know- 
eth that ye have need of all these things (Matt. 6 : 

31. 32). 

But godliness with contentment is great gain : 
for we brought nothing into the world, for neither 
can we carry anything out ; but having food and 
covering we shall be therewith content (i Tim. 6 : 
6-8). 

Mortify therefore your members which are upon 
the earth ; fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil 
desire, and covetousness, the which is idolatry (Col. 

3 : 5). 

Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that 

would borrow of thee turn not thou away (Matt. 5 : 

42). 

And I say unto you, Make to yourself friends 

out of the mammon of unrighteousness ; that when 

it shall fail, they may receive you into the eternal 

tabernacles. He that is faithful in a very little is 

faithful also in much : and he that is unrighteous in 

a very little is unrighteous also in much. If there' 



1 6 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

fore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous 
mammon, who will commit to your trust the true 
riches ? And if ye have not been faithful in that 
which is another's, who will give you that which is 
your own? (Luke i6 : 9-12.) 

Now there was a certain rich man, and he was 
clothed in purple and fine linen, faring sumptu- 
ously every day : and a certain beggar named Laz- 
arus was laid at his gate full of sores, and desir- 
ing to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the 
rich man's table ; yea, even the dogs came and 
licked his sores. And it came to pass, that the 
beggar died, and that he was carried away by the 
angels into Abraham's bosom: and the rich man 
also died. . . And in Hades he lifted up his eyes, 
being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off and 
Lazarus in his bosom (Luke 16 : 19-23). 

Give, and it shall be given unto you ; good meas- 
ure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, 
shall they give into your bosom (Luke 6 : 38). 

Freely ye received, freely give (Matt. 10:8). 

But whoso hath the world's goods, and behold- 
eth his brother in need, and shutteth up his com- 
passion from him, how doth the love of God abide 
in him ? My little children, let us not love in word, 
neither with the tongue ; but in deed and truth 
(i John 3 : 17, 18). 

But to do good and to communicate forget not : 



THE DIVINE WORD 1 7 

for with such sacrifices God is well pleased (Heb. 
13 : 16). 

And he sat down over against the treasury, and 
beheld how the multitude cast money into the treas- 
ury : and many that were rich cast in much. And 
there came a poor widow, and she cast in t^vo 
mites, which make a farthing. And he called unto 
him his disciples, and said unto them. Verily I say 
unto you. This poor widow cast in more than all 
they which are casting into the treasury : for they 
all did cast in of their superfluity ; but she of her 
want did cast in all that she had, even all her liv- 
ing (Mark 12 : 41-44). 

Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I 
gave order to the churches of Galatia, so also do ye. 
Upon the first day of the week let each one of you 
lay by him in store, as he may prosper, that no col- 
lections be made when I come (i Cor. 16 : i, 2). 

Now in these days there came down prophets 
from Jerusalem unto Antioch. And there stood 
up one of them named Agabus, and signified by 
the Spirit that there, should be a great famine over 
all the world : which came to pass in the days of 
Claudius. And the disciples, every man according 
to his ability, determined to send reHef unto the 
brethren that dwelt in Judea : which also they did, 
sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas 
and Saul (Acts 1 1 : 27-30). 



I 8 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

Moreover, brethren, we make known to you the 
grace of God which hath been given in the churches 
of Macedonia ; how that in much proof of affliction 
the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty 
abounded unto the riches of their HberaHty. For 
according to their power, I bear witness, yea, and 
beyond their power, they gave of their own accord, 
beseeching us with much entreaty in regard of this 
grace and the fellowship in the ministering to the 
saints : and this not as we had hoped, but first they 
gave their own selves to the Lord, and to us by the 
will of God. Insomuch that we exhorted Titus, 
that as he had made a beginning before, so he 
would also complete in you this grace also. But 
as ye abound in everything, in faith, in utterance, 
and knowledge, and in all earnestness, and in your 
love to us, see that ye abound in this grace also. 
I speak not by way of commandment, but as prov- 
ing through the earnestness of others the sincerity 
also of your love. For ye know the grace of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for 
your sakes he became poor, that ye through his 
poverty might become rich. And herein I give 
my judgment : for this is expedient for you, who 
were the first to make a beginning a year ago, not 
only to do but also to will. But now complete the 
doing also ; that as there was the readiness to will, 
so there may be the completion also out of your 



THE DIVINE WORD 1 9 

ability. For if the readiness is there, it is accept- 
able according as a man hath, not according as he 
hath not. For I say not this that others may be 
eased, and ye distressed : but by equality your 
abundance being a supply at this present time for 
their want, . . . that there may be equality : as it 
is written. He that gathered much had nothing 
over ; and he that gathered little had no lack. 

But thanks be to God, which putteth the same 
earnest care for you into the heart of Titus. For 
indeed he accepted our exhortation ; but being 
himself very earnest, he went forth unto you of his 
own accord. And we have sent together with him 
the brother whose praise in the gospel is spread 
through all the churches ; and not only so, but who 
was also appointed by the churches to travel with 
us in the matter of this grace, which is ministered 
by us to the glory of the Lord, and to show our 
readiness : avoiding this, that any man should 
blame us in the matter of this bounty which is 
ministered by us : for we take thought for things 
honourable, not only in the sight of the Lord, but 
also in the sight of men. And we have sent with 
them our brother, whom we have many times 
proved earnest in many things, but now much 
more earnest, by reason of the great confidence 
which he hath in you. Whether any inquire about 
Titus, he is my partner and my fellow-worker to 



20 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

you-ward ; or our brethren, they are the messen- 
gers of the churches, they are the glory of Christ. 
Show ye therefore unto them in the face of the 
churches the proof of your love, and of our glory- 
ing on your behalf 

For as touching the ministering to the saints, 
it is superfluous for me to write to you : for I know 
your readiness, of which I glory on your behalf to 
them of Macedonia, that Achaia hath been pre- 
pared for a year past ; and your zeal hath stirred up 
very many of them. But I have sent the brethren, 
that our glorying on your behalf may not be made 
void in this respect ; that, even as I said, ye may 
be prepared : lest by any means, if there come with 
me any of Macedonia, and find you unprepared, 
we (that we say not, ye) should be put to shame 
in this confidence. I thought it necessary therefore 
to intreat the brethren, that they would go before 
unto you, and make up beforehand your afore- 
promised bounty, that the same might be ready, as 
a matter of bounty, and not of extortion. 

But this I say. He that soweth sparingly shall 
reap also sparingly ; and he that soweth bounti- 
fully shall reap also bountifully. Let each man do 
according as he hath purposed in his heart ; not 
grudgingly, or of necessity : for God loveth a cheer- 
ful giver. And God is able to make all grace 
abound unto you ; that ye having always all suffi- 



THE DIVINE WORD 2 I 

ciency in everything, may abound unto every good 
work: as it is written, He hath scattered abroad, 
he hath given to the poor ; his righteousness abideth 
forever. And he that supplieth seed to the sower 
and bread for food, shall supply and multiply your 
seed for sowing, and increase the fruits of your 
righteousness : ye being enriched in everything 
unto all liberality, which worketh through us thanks- 
giving to God. For the ministration of this service 
not only filleth up the measure of the wants of the 
saints, but aboundeth also through many thanks- 
givings unto God ; seeing that through the proving 
of you by this ministration they glorify God for the 
obedience of your confession unto the gospel of 
Christ, and for the liberality of your contribution 
unto them and unto all ; while they themselves also, 
with supplication on your behalf, long after you by 
reason of the exceeding grace of God in you. 
Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift (2 Cor. 
chap. 8, 9). 

Howbeit ye did well, that ye had fellowship with 
my affliction. And ye yourselves also know, ye 
Philippians, that in the beginning of the gospel, 
when I departed from Macedonia, no church had 
fellowship with me in the matter of giving and re- 
ceiving, but ye only ; for even in Thessalonica ye 
sent once and again unto my need. Not that I 
seek for the gift ; but I seek for the fruit that in- 



22 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

creaseth to your account. But I have all things 
and abound : I am filled, having received from 
Epaphroditus the things that came from you, an 
odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well- 
pleasing to God (Phil. 4 : 14-18). 



CHAPTER II 

ACQUISITION 

CAN a faithful and obedient disciple of Jesus 
Christ acquire property ? Some of his words 
on the subject seem plainly and emphatically to 
prohibit acquisition. *' Lay not up for yourselves 
treasures upon the earth." "And seek not ye 
what ye shall eat, and what ye shall drink." "Sell 
that ye have, and give alms." The Holy Spirit 
said to the Hebrew Christians, " Be ye free from 
the love of money ; content with such things as ye 
have." If the word of Jesus is final, must we not 
forego absolutely the acquisition and possession of 
property? So we shall conclude if we isolate his 
commands, and give them a literal interpretation. 
Does not his example compel us to deduce this 
rule of life from his teachings ? He never acquired 
any property. After he ceased to be wholly de- 
pendent upon his parents, he earned his daily bread 
by the labor of his hands, until his public ministry 
began ; then he was dependent upon the gifts of 
friends. He said of himself, "The Son of Man 
hath not where to lay his head." He owned no 

money, houses, lands, nor any earthly treasure. If 

23 



24 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

we follow him, must we be, in like manner, with- 
out possessions ? Many have thus interpreted his 
words and example. In other days those who 
were resolved to follow Jesus closely took a vow of 
perpetual poverty. In our day Christian socialists 
are telling us that no Christian can rightly hold 
property in his own name. 

Before we attempt to settle the question we 
should see clearly where such an interpretation will 
land us. If these commands of Christ are to be 
taken literally, his disciples can neither acquire nor 
hold anything. It is not a question of little or 
much. Under this law the capitalist has just as 
much right to own a whole county or a trunk-line 
of railroad, as a workingman has to own his little 
house and lot or the furniture of his home. Jesus 
does not say, *' Lay not up for yourselves " great 
"treasure." To whom does he say, **Sell that ye 
have and give alms"? Only to the rich? It does 
not so read. If it is argued that he must have 
meant those with large possessions, who shall fix 
the limit ? If a Christian may own anything at all, 
how much may he own ? With this question open, 
to be settled by human teachers, we should have 
hopeless confusion, endless discord, bitter acrimony. 
Christ gave us no such insoluble problem. 

If these prohibitions are to be taken literally, 
there are three possible methods of application. 



ACQUISITION 25 

The first is that all Christians should live in per- 
petual poverty. Earning what they can day by 
day, they will use what may be necessary to sup- 
ply their daily wants, and give away the remainder. 

There are at least two objections to this which 
make us question whether our Lord meant it to 
be the rule of life for his followers. One is that 
it would shut out Christians from all those kinds 
of business in which capital is required, and keep 
them all in the ranks of the wage-earners. It 
would make them dependent upon worldlings and 
unbelievers, and in a position to be oppressed by 
them. And if all the world should become Chris- 
tian, no one could have any capital, and progress 
would be at an end. Another objection to the 
rule of perpetual poverty is that it would keep out 
of the hands of Christians an important instrument 
of power. Christians should control the money of 
the world so far as possible, that it may be used to 
extend the Kingdom of Christ and promote the 
happiness of mankind. 

A second possible method of applying Christ's 
commands on this subject, if they are to be taken 
literally, is that individual ownership should be 
prohibited and that the State should own all prop- 
erty. A single objection to this is enough to show 
that Christ never proposed such a plan. It is that 
the property created by the labor and skill of 



26 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

Christians would be controlled by an unchristian 
State, at least until Christians were in the majority. 
''What fellowship hath Christ with Belial?" '*Be 
ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers." 
No Christian could live under such an arrangement 
and be loyal to his Lord. It would be equivalent 
to dethroning Christ and elevating an impersonal 
State to his place. Nationalism is far from being a 
Christian idea. 

A third possible application is that Christians 
shall own in common what property they acquire. 
This plan has been a favorite one with many of the 
disciples of Christ, and seems to have warrant in 
the course of the first church at Jerusalem while it 
was acting under immediate apostolic direction. 
The advantages and difficulties of this method of 
life will be considered when we come to the sub- 
ject of distribution. Just here it is enough to say 
that if Christ absolutely prohibited any acquisition 
of property by his followers, Christian communism 
is only an apparent not a real obedience to the 
command. It does not matter whether one Chris- 
tian working alone or ten Christians working to- 
gether accumulate property, they are both wrong 
if all accumulation is forbidden. Furthermore, it 
is not apparent that Christ ever ordained commun- 
ism for his followers, or prescribed it as a remedy 
for greed and worldliness. 



ACQUISITION 27 

What, then, did Christ mean? He gave no un- 
wise or impracticable commands. We have no 
temptation to explain away his words ; we only need 
rightly to understand them. 

First of all we should consider the circumstances 
in which they were spoken. The Jews of the time 
of our Lord were a covetous, money-loving people. 
Generation after generation of them had inherited 
and cherished the belief that worldly prosperity 
was a sign of Divine approval. In their view the 
rich were Heaven's favorites. To such a people it 
was necessary that Jesus should use strong language 
on the subject. Those who were rich needed to 
be shocked out of their complacency and self-con- 
ceit, and the poor needed encouragement. Hence 
he said, ''Blessed are ye poor, for yours is the 
kingdom of God." "It is hard for a rich man to 
enter into the kingdom of heaven." He did not 
mean that all the poor are saved and all the rich 
lost, but by these hyperbolical statements taught 
that so far as his kingdom is concerned the advan- 
tages are with the poor. In the same manner we 
are to interpret the apparent prohibitions against 
the accumulation and ownership of property. 

It was his custom to use these hyperbolical ex- 
pressions. He said, *'If any man come to me and 
hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and chil- 
dren, and brethren, and sisters, yea and his own 



28 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

life also, he cannot be my disciple." No one ever 
supposed that Jesus meant by this to teach that it 
is the duty of Christians to hate their kindred. It 
is an emphatic way of saying that his followers must 
be prepared to renounce their kindred if it becomes 
necessary in order to be loyal to him. Again he 
said, "When thou makest a dinner or a supper 
call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy 
kinsmen nor thy rich neighbors." It would be 
absurd to interpret this as an absolute prohibition 
of all social and practical gatherings by Christians 
with their kindred and equals. They are sim- 
ply forbidden to do it to the exclusion of the poor 
and helpless from their bounty, and because they 
desire a return of the favor. He said to the Sa- 
maritan woman at the well of Jacob, "Woman, be- 
lieve me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither in 
this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the 
Father." Does he mean that both those places 
will become unfit or impossible places of worship? 
Nothing of the sort; he means that neither must 
be regarded as a superior or exclusive place of 
worship, on the ground that a spiritual God can be 
worshiped in spirit and in truth at any place. 

These examples are sufficient to show that such 
strong, hyperbolical statements were not unusual 
in our Lord's teaching. A fair consideration of 
the circumstances and of his teaching as a whole 



ACQUISITION 29 

will enable us correctly to interpret such passages. 
When he says, "Treasure not for yourselves treas- 
ures upon the earth," we understand him to forbid 
his disciples to set their hearts on earthly riches 
to the neglect of higher interests. Rather than do 
that, "Sell that ye have and give alms." Be gen- 
erous in giving rather than greedy in accumulat- 
ing. And when he says, "Seek not ye what ye 
shall eat and what ye shall drink," he certainly does 
not mean to encourage idleness and vagabondage. 
If we do not work for ourselves others will be bur- 
dened with our support. Those who interpreted 
these commands literally and became "mendicant 
monks" and "begging friars" lost the spirit of our 
Lord's teaching in following the letter, and per- 
verted it to sanction a course of life that was essen- 
tially criminal. The connection shows plainly that 
our Lord's purpose was to forbid worldly anxiety 
and encourage trust in the heavenly Father. "For 
all these things do the nations of the world seek 
after : but your Father knoweth that ye have need 
of these things." And when the Holy Spirit said, 
" Be ye free from the love of money ; content with 
such things as ye have," he does not forbid accu- 
mulation. To be content with what we have is 
not inconsistent with strenuous effort to gain 
more. A discontented and complaining spirit is 
wrong, no matter how small may be our worldly 



30 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

success ; but one need not have that in order to 
acquire property. 

But can one accumulate who is "free from the 
love of money"? That depends upon the motive 
and purpose of his effort. If he strives to gain 
money that he may gratify self, he is not free from 
the love of it ; if he desires it simply as an instru- 
ment for good, he may use every legitimate means 
to acquire it and still have no sinful love for it 
When the teaching of the New Testament is rightly 
understood, we find nothing in it to prohibit the 
acquisition of property. 

But there is a worldly and there is a Christian 
v/ay of acquiring it. What is the Christian way? 
The teaching of Jesus and of the Holy Spirit 
gives us a clear and simple answer to that interest- 
ing and important question. From this teaching we 
deduce easily two rules : 

First, the Christian must not seek to acquire 
property in such a spirit or in such a manner as to 
violate the law of love. 

Secondly, he must not sacrifice his own higher 
interests in order to acquire it. 

Any student of Christianity is impressed with 
the fact that its primary law is love. Said Jesus, 
*'A new commandment I give unto you, that ye 
love one another." "Thou shalt love thy neigh- 
bour as thyself" The example of Jesus empha- 



ACQUISITION 3 1 

• 

sizes his instruction. He gave his whole life with 
all its powers to the service of others in the spirit 
of love. This law is fundamental. All the teach- 
ing of Jesus is to be interpreted in the light of this 
law. We may be sure that he never gave warrant 
for any course of conduct that would be in viola- 
tion of it. The law of love requires that we shall 
abstain from everything that is injurious to others, 
and do all we can that is beneficial. Thus it is 
both negative and positive. 

In the acquisition of property there is danger 
that we shall violate the negative side of it and do 
injury to others. A common method of violating 
it is that of oppression and fraud on the part of 
employers. The terrible indictment against the 
rich which we have quoted from James is based on 
the statement made directly to them : "Behold, 
the hire of the labourers who mowed your fields, 
which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth out : 
and the cries of them that reaped have entered 
into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth." This opens 
before us the whole question of work and wages. 
It is the great social problem of the day. It has 
led to boundless discussion and to the great war 
between labor and capital. We cannot enter into 
the details of the discussion at the present time. 

This problem gives rise to many difficult ques- 
tions. Shall labor be considered a commodity to 



32 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

be bought by the highest bidder? What are fair 
wages for any given kind of employment? What 
share of the increment justly belongs to capital? 
Ought brain work to receive larger pay than manual 
toil? It may never be possible to answer these 
questions satisfactorily to all concerned ; but one 
thing is clear, an employer who does not pay fair 
wages to his employees, and pay it as promptly as 
possible, is not a disciple of Christ. He is a wor- 
shiper of Mammon, and not a worshiper of God. 
His greed for gain has made him violate the first 
law of Christianity — the law of love. Under the 
law of Christ we may acquire property ; but not at 
the expense of those who work for us. 

Again, those who seek to acquire property are 
tempted to violate the law of love by fraud. All 
deceit, or over-reaching, or cheating, or robbery of 
another, is a violation of this law. If we take any- 
thing from another without returning what is to him 
a fair equivalent, it is certain that we do not love 
him as ourselves. We know how common these 
things are in the business world ; but they can 
have no place in the conduct of Christians. They 
are directly prohibited. " Provide things honest in 
the sight of all men." ''Know ye not that the un- 
righteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? 
Be not deceived : neither . . . thieves, nor covet- 
ous, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of 



ACQUISITION 33 

God," The principal reason for condemning such 
practices is that they are in direct violation of the 
law of love. 

The greed for gain often leads men to inflict 
positive injury upon others. Lovers of money are 
not lovers of their kind, but are indifferent to their 
welfare, or treat them with heartless cruelty. Men 
have kidnapped and sold their fellow-men into 
slavery for the sake of gain. Landlords extort ex- 
orbitant rents from their tenants, and refuse to give 
them any corresponding advantages. Manufactur- 
ers and mining companies fail to provide for the 
comfort, health, and safety of their employees, be- 
cause such provision will cost money. They would 
rather sacrifice men than money ; would rather shed 
blood than yield booty. Foods and medicines are 
adulterated regardless of any consequences except 
the profits of the adulterant. Rich men combine 
to put up the price of the necessities of life, not car- 
ing who may suffer if they can make themselves 
richer. Men manufacture and sell that which they 
know is destructive of soul and body, being will- 
ing indirectly to murder their fellow-men and send 
them to perdition for the sake of money. These 
are a few of the crimes into which men are led 
when they love money more than they love God 
and humanity. It is needless to say that no disci- 
ple of Christ can acquire property by processes or 



34 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

methods which involve such treatment of others. 
If he derives revenue from any source that is in- 
jurious to others, the Christian must abandon it or 
be disloyal to his Lord. 

It is a very common mistake to suppose that sins 
of this kind are mostly committed by the rich. 
Careful observation will show that the poor are 
equally guilty. A large majority of employees 
try to give as little service as possible for their 
wages. They will take advantage of eveiy op- 
portunity to shirk or slight their work. I once 
asked a kind-hearted, just man, who had been an 
employer of skilled and unskilled workmen for 
forty years, what proportion of men could be 
trusted to. do a fair day's work when they were 
not watched. His answer was, ''about one in 
five." On that estimate, four-fifths of the wage- 
earners are rogues who are trying to get something 
for nothing. Whatever the right proportion may 
be, it is certain that, in the conflict between labor 
and capital, the robbery is not all on one side. 
Withholding service that is due is just as bad as 
withholding wages that are earned. 

The Christian law of love requires in business 
that employers shall pay fair wages to those who 
work for them, and have due regard for their 
physical, mental, and moral welfare ; that in every 
trade a fair equivalent shall be given ; that only 



ACQUISITION 35 

pure goods shall be made and sold, and only honest 
weights and measures used ; that landlords shall 
exact only fair rents for farms and houses and 
rooms ; that no business shall be engaged in that 
is injurious to others ; that money-lenders shall not 
exact usury from the unfortunate ; that wage- 
earners shall give an honest day's work for a just 
day's wages ; in a word, that every one shall regard 
the rights and interests of others. It is sometimes 
claimed by business men that the obsei-vance of 
this law would preclude all possibility of worldly 
success. They say that no man can acquire prop- 
erty under such rules as these. If that is true, 
men must take their choice between Christ and 
property, between eternal life and worldly good. 
There is no other alternative. It is impossible to 
be a disciple of Christ and at the same time de- 
liberately violate this law of love. "Ye cannot 
worship God and mammon." Men may be hypo- 
crites, they may deceive themselves, or they may 
have a kind of Sunday faith that does not affect 
the life, but the alternative is not thus evaded. 
Suppose it is true that one cannot get rich and 
obey the law of love; what of it? Thousands of 
the disciples of Christ have lived in conditions in 
which lifelong and extreme poverty was part of 
the price of discipleship, and yet have followed 
him and been loyal to the end. What they have 



36 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

done others can do. But in this country, at least, 
such conditions do not exist. Here men of ability, 
of skill, of enterprise, of energy, and of industry, 
may acquire property and still keep the Christian 
law of love. Our boundless natural resources, our 
mechanical inventions, our just laws, and our gen- 
eral admiration of honorable methods, make this 
possible. Perhaps a true Christian cannot make so 
much money as a worldling of equal capacity and 
enterprise, but he can make enough. At any rate, 
if he would follow Jesus he must obey the law of 
love. If he has the spirit of Christ he will set little 
value upon worldly good. He will hold it in con- 
tempt except as it may minister to the welfare of 
his fellow-men. It is inconceivable that any one 
in whose heart Christ is dwelling should be greedy 
for gain as a good in itself. 

Secondly, the Christian must not sacrifice his own 
higher interests in order to acquire money. One 
fact emphasized by Christ and by the Holy Spirit 
is that it is dangerous to seek or to possess wealth. 
Jesus said, " Take heed and keep yourselves from 
all covetousness : for a man's life consisteth not in 
the abundance of the things which he possesseth. 
For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the 
whole world and lose his own soul?" "It is hard 
for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven." 
The Holy Spirit said : " But they that desire to be 



ACQUISITION 37 

rich fall into a temptation and a snare, and many 
foolish and hurtful lusts such as drown men in de- 
struction and perdition. For the love of money 
is a root of all kinds of evil : which some reaching 
after have been led astray from the faith, and have 
pierced themselves through with many sorrows. 
But thou, O man of God, flee these things ; and 
follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, 
patience, -meekness." There are dangers both in 
acquiring and possessing wealth, but in this part 
of the discussion we have to do only with the 
former. They are described with great force in 
these words of Paul to Timothy. Those who seek 
to gain wealth are tempted to dishonesty. Enter- 
ing into fierce competition with others engaged in 
the same pursuit, and finding that the others do 
not scruple at trickery, they try to justify them- 
selves in the same practices. The temptation to 
deceit, fraud, over-reaching, and oppression, is too 
strong for them and they fall. Of course this 
means the destruction of character. They injure 
others in property, but the chief injury is to their 
own souls. While they rob others they murder 
themselves. Every violation of the law of love in- 
jures the violator more than it does any one else. 
And so it is the way of the world for men to sell 
their souls for money. The apostle seems to teach 
that those who have confessed Christ are not free 



$8 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

from these dangers. They are very real and im- 
minent dangers, and all men are warned against 
them. Under the Christian law one must not ac- 
quire money at the expense of his character. He 
must not barter his soul for worldly gain. 

Another danger is that the seeker after money 
will become avaricious. Beginning his pursuit 
with good motives a change is likely to take place 
in his spirit. At first his real purpose may be to 
acquire wealth in order to do good with it. But 
the fascinating pursuit is likely to change such a 
one into a selfish money-seeker. He sees so many 
ways in which money can be made to minister to 
his selfish desires that his benevolent purpose 
evaporates, and almost unconsciously he becomes 
a worshiper of mammon. The generous and noble 
purposes of youth are often thus subtlely destroyed 
by the man's greed for gain. There is always 
danger that the road to wealth will lead one to 
that covetousness which surely shuts him out from 
the kingdom of heaven. We may mention a single 
illustration of this danger. Many a young man 
has said that he would become a Christian after he 
had acquired a certain amount of property, and 
really meant it, only to find that before the stated 
goal was reached all desire for spiritual good had 
been smothered by "the deceitfulness of riches." 

Another serious danger to them that •* desire to 



ACQUISITION 39 

be rich " is that they will become absorbed in the 
pursuit of money to the neglect of all higher in- 
terests. They are likely to have no standard of 
value but the money value. They are so afraid 
their bodies will not be cared for that they forget 
all about their souls. They would rather make 
money than cultivate love. They are so busy 
raking up sticks and straws that they cannot see 
the golden crown just above their heads. Against 
this danger Jesus uttered the most solemn warnings. 
''Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, or 
what ye shall drink ; nor yet for your body, what 
ye shall put on." " But seek ye first the king- 
dom of God and his righteousness, and all these 
things shall be added unto you." "Lay up for 
yourselves treasures in heaven." A man who 
was thus absorbed in the pursuit of worldly good 
once came to Jesus and said, " Master, bid my 
brother divide the inheritance with me." He was 
so full of the love of money that he could bring 
to the Divine Teacher no nobler request than that. 
When he might have had eternal life and divine 
truth from him, he was only able to ask the Lord 
to aid him in money-getting. And there is many 
a man who, if he were to pray at all, could think 
of nothing higher to ask the Lord than that he 
would make him rich. No wonder Jesus said to 
him, "Man, who made me a judge or a divider 



40 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

over you," utterly refusing to arbitrate in any such 
matter. And then he went on to give the parable 
of the rich fool who was condemned because he 
was so satisfied with his worldly goods that he for- 
got all about God and eternity and his own soul. 
** So is he that layeth up treasure for himself and is 
not rich towards God." It is very difficult to get 
rich toward God and rich in this world's goods at 
the same time. The former means rich in faith 
and love and hope, and certainly one cannot be 
rich in these graces when he is absorbed in the pur- 
suit of worldly gain. Jesus does not say that the 
two kinds of riches are absolutely exclusive of each 
other ; but in many cases they are. And when 
they are, he says that the man is a fool who chooses 
the earthly riches in preference to the heavenly. 

It is commonly supposed that these dangers be- 
set only those who are successful in the pursuit of 
wealth. But that is a great mistake. The posses- 
sion of wealth has its peculiar dangers ; but in the 
matter of acquisition the dangers of the unsuccess- 
ful are greater than those of the successful. If a 
man has his heart set on worldly goods it does not 
matter whether he gains little or much so long as 
his desire remains the same. There is probably as 
much greed for gain among the poor as among the 
rich, and as much lying, trickery, and fraud to 
gratify it. Sympathy for the man who fails in his 



ACQUISITION 41 

efforts often blinds us to the character of his pur- 
poses. If people are very poor they are apt to be- 
come completely absorbed in the struggle for bread 
and to forget both God and heaven. The prohi- 
bitions which Jesus uttered against anxiety about 
food and clothing, and especially for the morrow, 
must have been addressed to the poor. They 
are as likely to distrust God as the rich are to for- 
get him. Their failure to gain wealth when they 
have set their hearts on it is apt to make them sour 
and discontented. Contentment with what we 
have is as much a Christian virtue as liberality in 
the use of wealth. *' Be ye free from the love of 
money; content with such things as ye have." It 
is undeniable that the poor are often not only dis- 
contented, but envious, jealous, and spiteful toward 
the rich. We are prone to excuse such feelings on 
the ground that the conduct of the rich partly jus- 
tifies them ; nevertheless, they are directly contrary 
to the teaching of the New Testament. The man 
who indulges them must pluck *' the beam " out of 
his own eye before he can see clearly to pluck "the 
mote" out of his rich brother's eye. 

Another great danger to the Christian who is 
seeking to acquire wealth is that he will become an 
idler in the vineyard of our Lord. He will excuse 
himself from active service on the ground that his 
"business" absorbs his time and strength. On 



42 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

this point I wish to be fair and discriminating. 
Undoubtedly the Master sets some of his servants 
making money and others preaching the gospel. 
All have not the same gifts and all are not called 
to the same work. The Christian who is making 
money for the Master's use is not to be criticised 
because he is not spending his time and strength 
directly in religious work. He may be as pure in 
his motives, as complete in his devotion, as the 
most consecrated preacher. Nevertheless, it re- 
mains true that no man can be wholly excused 
from personal service in the Lord's kingdom. 
When men are so busy in making money that they 
have no time for family worship, or for the instruc- 
tion of their children in godliness, or for the 
prayer meeting of their church, or for the manage- 
ment of the affairs of the church, or for personal 
work in winning souls, they are sacrificing higher 
interests to lower, and violating Christ's law. They 
cannot justify themselves nor correct the error by 
saying that they intend to use their money in ex- 
tending Christ's kingdom. Some personal service 
is required and a substitute will not be accepted. 
One who refuses to do such personal work on the 
ground that his money-making hinders, robs him- 
self of a great advantage. No one can grow as 
a Christian who is wholly absorbed in making 
money, even though he is making it for Christian 



ACQUISITION 43 

purposes. The first business of a Christian is to 
grow into the likeness of Christ. 

It is simply a truism to say that the soul is worth 
more than the body, that the spiritual is more val- 
uable than the material, that eternal things are 
more important than temporal. It is impossible to 
deny it in the face of our Lord's example and in- 
struction. The most superficial student of his life 
is impressed by the fact that he cared nothing for 
wealth. This contempt sprang mainly from the 
fact that there are other things of so much greater 
value. He would have his disciples set their hearts 
on these greater things. They are to ''lay up 
treasures in heaven." They should acquire the 
"true riches." They must seek to get "rich to- 
ward God," if they would avoid the charge of being 
fools. They are to " flee " the dangers of trying 
to get rich and "follow after righteousness, godli- 
ness, faith, love, patience, meekness." 

The teaching is sufficiently explicit. No one 
can misunderstand its meaning. The follower of 
Christ may acquire property, but he may not do it 
in such a way or to such an extent as to violate the 
law of love, which is fundamental and primary in 
the kingdom of God. He must not fail in love to 
his neighbor for the sake of gain. The obligation 
to love himself is equally imperative ; hence, he 
must not love money more than his own higher in- 



44 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

terests. Having received the word, he must not 
allow ''the care of this world and the deceitfulness 
of riches" to ** choke the word" so that it *• becom- 
eth unfruitful." Other things are worth more than 
money, and the law of Christ is that we are to seek 
for ourselves the best that can be had. He who 
can starve his own soul and impoverish heaven for 
sake of worldly good has failed to learn the pri- 
mary lesson of our Lord's instruction. 



CHAPTER III 

CONSECRATION 

THIS word is much used by those who have 
little apprehension of its meaning. Primar- 
ily, it means the act of making sacred, or of devot- 
ing to a holy use. Devoting ourselves to God to be 
used according to his will is consecration. It is a 
practical recognition of his ownership. It is the act 
of surrendering ourselves to him. It is not a senti- 
ment, a state of feeling, but a decision of the will 
followed by consistent acts. Many persons feel 
that they belong to God, and are veiy complacent 
over their religious attitude, who never practically 
consult his will with regard to anything. Such per- 
sons are not consecrated. It is hard to tell whether 
they are deceiving themselves or trying to deceive 
others. Consecration is not a profession. No 
doubt some persons make a profession of conse- 
cration ignorantly, not knowing what it involves, 
and some say that they consecrate themselves 
and then fail to do it ; but real consecration is an 
act. It is an act as definite and specific and as 
easily understood as any other act — as e. g., the 
act of marriage or the act of signing a deed. It is 

45 



46 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

not a matter of feeling or of knowledge, but solely 
a matter of the will. 

It is the same act when it relates to property. 
When we consecrate our property to God we 
simply give it over to him to be used according to 
his will. It is a definite transaction. When we 
have consecrated it to God we have no further 
will concerning the use of it, any more than we 
have concerning the use of a farm which we have 
deeded to another. His will is then to control it. 
Our only responsibility lies in learning what that 
will is and doing it. We may simplify the matter 
still more. Consecration of property to God is 
simply applying the law of obedience to its use. 
''Obedience" is a more old-fashioned word than 
" consecration," but it means substantially the same 
thing. Perhaps it is not so popular in religious as- 
semblies because it is more easily understood. 

It should be impressed upon our minds at the 
outset that there can be no real consecration of 
ourselves to God which does not include the conse- 
cration of our property. To give ourselves to God 
and expect to retain the use of our property is a 
mere farce. Are we bound to consecrate our 
property to him ? The question is answered in the 
definition of consecration. One cannot be a fol- 
lower of Christ without obeying him. That obe- 
dience must be universal. We cannot say we are 



CONSECRATION 47 

obedient if in any department of life, or in refer- 
ence to anything we control, we are putting our 
will against his. Neither can a follower of Christ 
disregard his will. Many persons mistakenly think 
they are not disobedient because they have never 
really asked, *' Lord, what wilt thou have me to 
do?" We are bound to ask that question and to 
ask it in a spirit of submission. We have no oc- 
casion to deceive ourselves by confusing our minds 
with big words. A Christian is one who obeys 
Christ and obeys him in the use of his property as 
fully as in other things. Consecration of property 
then, is an essential part of following Christ. He 
must be allowed to direct in the use of that or the 
property holder is in rebellion against his Lord. 

This might end the discussion. But since there 
are different ways of stating the same truth, we 
may consider some further reasons why we should 
consecrate our property. 

I. It is the practical recognition of an evident 
fact. As Christians we belong to God by virtue of 
creation, redemption, and conquest. He created 
us. When one invents a thing and then fashions it 
out of material which is rightfully his, his creation 
belongs to him. He can maintain his right of pos- 
session against all comers. In that sense we be- 
long to God. If any man is not serving God, he 
is like a runaway slave. He has stolen himself 



48 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

from his rightful master. God has redeemed us in 
Christ Jesus. Having run away and sold ourselves 
to the adversary, he has bought us back. "And 
ye are not your own ; for ye were bought with a 
price ; glorify God therefore in your body." And 
it was in order that he might have a people to love, 
in whom to dwell, and whom he would sanctify and 
glorify, that he redeemed us. "Ye are an elect 
race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people 
for God's own possession." Among warlike peoples 
one way of acquiring property is to go forth with 
arms and conquer it. Christ came forth from 
heaven armed with love to conquer us. By his 
work for us and in us, he has made a loving con- 
quest of our hearts. Thus the fact of Divine 
ownership has been established. 

But if we belong to God, our property also be- 
longs to him. The greater includes the less. A 
slave can own no property in his own right. What- 
ever he has belongs to his master. Our relation to 
God is more loving, tender, and sweet than that of 
a slave to his master. He is a father unto us and 
we are his children. But the ownership is just as 
absolute, and conscious enjoyment of the filial re- 
lation depends upon recognition of the ownership. 
We cannot know God as our father unless we know 
him as owner. 

Although it has been my plan to limit this dis- 



CONSECRATION 49 

cussion to the teaching of the New Testament, I 
cannot refrain at this point from calling attention 
to the clearness with which the fact of Divine 
ownership was recognized even under the Old Dis- 
pensation. **The earth is the Lord's and the ful- 
ness thereof; the world and they that dwell therein," 
is an expression which, in varying forms, appears 
frequently in the Psalms. The most striking exhibi- 
tion of this knowledge is to be found in the prayer 
of David at the time when the people brought in 
their offerings for the erection of the temple. Some 
of the statements in this prayer of dedication are : 
** All that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine." 
"Both riches and honor come of thee." And of 
the offerings he said, *' Of thine own have we given 
thee." If we have seemed to take advanced ground 
in this matter of consecration, take notice that we 
are not one whit in advance of David. He recog- 
nized the fact that the Lord owned him and his 
property and this is all that we do in the act of 
consecration. 

2. Consecration of our property to God is re- 
quired by common honesty. We are stewards. 
What we have in our possession is God's property 
placed for a time in our hands to be used for him. 
This is the real meaning of the parables of the 
Pounds and the Talents. A master goes away for 
a season and leaves his business in the hands of his 

D 



so CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

servants. That they may carry on that business 
he entrusts them with a certain amount of money. 
The master in these parables represents our Lord, 
and the servants are his disciples. The pounds 
and talents may represent more than property or 
money, but they certainly include that. Another 
parable about stewards is concluded with these 
words : " He that is faithful in a very little is faith- 
ful also in much, and he that is unrighteous in a 
very little is unrighteous also in much. If therefore 
ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mam- 
mon, who will commit to your trust the true riches ? 
And if ye have not been faithful in that which is 
another's, who will give you that which is your 
own?" According to this, money is the least of 
the things which God gives us. With money he 
tests our faithfulness to see whether we are fit to 
receive the eternal riches of the soul. Money is 
''that which is another's," the riches of the soul 
may be our own. Nothing could be plainer on 
the point of stewardship. It is uniformly assumed 
in the New Testament that our property all belongs 
to God. We are stewards. We are transacting 
business for another. " It is required in stewards 
that a man be found faithful." The moment a 
steward begins to think of what he is using as be- 
ing his own, the seeds of dishonesty are springing 
up in his heart. In spirit he has already begun to 



CONSECRATION 5 1 

rob his master. To maintain his honesty he must 
practically and continuously recognize the fact that 
he is a steward. He will avoid the temptation to 
steal only by keeping that ever before his mind. 

But "will a man rob God?" **Yet ye have 
robbed me." ** But ye say, Wherein have we 
robbed thee?" ** In tithes and offering." But 
that is in the Old Testament ; the teaching of the 
New is a distinct advance upon what is implied in 
that stern charge. In the New Testament it is as- 
sumed that not only "tithes and offerings " belong 
to God, but all that we have ; and robbery consists 
in using as our own "that which is another's." If 
this relation of stewardship is real, we cannot be 
honest men and women unless we practically rec- 
ognize God's ownership of all the property in our 
possession. If we are using it selfishly or in any 
way contrary to his will, we are thieves and rob- 
bers. We may not be conscious of the crime and 
may not like the hard names, but that does not 
alter the fact. Material possessions cannot remain 
long in our hands ; only for a few years at most 
do we hold the office of steward. In death God 
will take us away from our property. Then the 
illusion of absolute possession will be dispelled. 
Then we shall be called upon " to give an account 
of our stewardship." Then it will appear to angels 
and to men whether or not we have been honest 



52 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

stewards of that concerning which the Lord said to 
us, "Occupy till I come." 

3. Consecration of our property will establish 
right relations with God. This thought has been 
partly expressed in the preceding paragraph, but it 
demands additional expansion. A person who does 
not consecrate his property must be in one of two 
wrong positions : Either he must ignore God, tak- 
ing no account of his claims, holding his property 
as belonging to himself ; or he must be consciously 
defiant of God, deliberately robbing him, and hav- 
ing no intention of making restitution. There does 
not seem to be any middle ground for one holding 
unconsecrated property. Both positions are mani- 
festly wrong. The only right relation to God is 
that in which we recognize his ownership of our- 
selves and of our property. If we ignore him, we 
are godless ; if we defy and rob him, we are rebels. 
It is only by consecration of ourselves and our 
property that we can have that fellowship with God 
which it is the design of redemption to establish. 
Take that wonderful passage in 2 Cor. 6 : 16—7 : 
I, and see how plainly this is taught by the Spirit : 
"And what agreement hath a temple of God with 
idols ? for we are a temple of the living God ; even 
as God said, I will dwell in them and walk in them ; 
and I will be their God and they shall be my 
people. Wherefore come ye out from atnong them 



CONSECRATION 53 

and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch no 
unclean thing ; and I will receive you, and will be 
to you a Father and ye shall be to me sons and 
daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. Having there- 
fore these promises, beloved, let us cleanse our- 
selves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, per- 
fecting holiness in the fear of God." The condi- 
tion of fellowship with God, of having him dwell in 
us and walk with us, of knowing him as Father, is 
that we be "separate," marked-off, set apart for 
divine uses. It is impossible to pray without con- 
secration of property. One who is holding his 
property away from God, either ignoring his claims 
or defying them, can observe scarcely any of the 
conditions of real and successful prayer. He can- 
not be filial, reverent, humble, obedient, submis- 
sive, or trustful. His disposition is directly the re- 
verse of these qualities. That is an important 
reason why so many nominal Christians are prac- 
tically prayerless. They come to feel that their 
prayers are vain forms and hence cease to pray. 
They lose faith in prayer when they have never of- 
fered a genuine prayer in their lives. This lack of 
consecration is the reason why so many apparent 
prayers are not answered. The attitude of the peti- 
tioner toward God is wholly wrong, though his peti- 
tions may be right, hence he does not obtain an- 
swers to his* requests. In fact, nothing can be right 



54 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

in our relations to God till our property is con- 
secrated to his service. 

4. This consecration will relieve the mind of care 
and anxiety. In respect to responsibility and care 
there is a great difference between one who does 
business for himself and one who is simply the 
agent of another. The latter, if he is a good 
steward, will not be careless or neglectful. But 
his chief concern will be to be faithful. If he can 
show his master that he has done the best he could 
he cares for nothing beyond. He will not be un- 
duly anxious about results. If he obeys orders, 
the responsibility for success does not rest on him. 
Furthermore, a child employed by a parent never 
worries about his own support. Neither does a 
slave. It is the business of the master to provide 
that. This is just as true in our relations to God. 
If we are making money for him, if we have conse- 
crated our property to him, we shall not be anxious 
about success nor worry about our support. But 
one who does business for his own advantage has 
these abiding and fruitful sources of anxiety. If 
he is greedy for gain he carries a load of care lest 
his ventures shall not turn out well. If they do 
not succeed he is anxious about his support and 
fearful that he will come to want. Here we touch 
the sources of most of the worry in the world. It is 
because we want things for ourselves that we are 



CONSECRATION 5 5 

anxious. If we could believe in the goodness and 
wisdom of God, and recognize the fact that we are 
his stewards, making money for him, and believe 
that he will provide for our wants as his servants, 
and give us whatever measure of success is for his 
glory and our good, we should be free from care 
about property. ** Humble yourselves therefore 
under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt 
you in due time ; casting all your anxiety upon 
him, because he careth for you." It is common to 
quote the latter part of this text and ignore the 
rest. But it cannot be thus bisected without de- 
stroying its value. We cannot claim the promise 
unless we observe the condition. Humble your- 
selves to your true position as stewards, servants, 
slaves of God, and then you can trust him to care 
for you. Crucify your selfish desires, and be con- 
tent to receive what he is willing to give, and then 
you can trust him to supply your wants. Carry on 
your business for the Lord and he will give you 
the right measure of success. It is only another 
way of saying, consecrate yourself and your prop- 
erty to God and he will take care of you. He 
will certainly care for his own ; he cannot care for 
that which is withheld from him. We should not 
expect him to deliver us from care until we put 
ourselves into his hands. Why should he keep in 
peace the distrustful and the disobedient ? Between 



56 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

consecration of our property and the refusal to 
consecrate it there is all the difference between a life 
of strain and fret and worry and anxiety and a life 
of peace and contentment and restfulness. This 
is a case in which giving is gain and surrender is 
victory. Consecration is the cure for carking care. 

5. It will greatly promote the development of 
the spiritual Hfe. What is spirituality? Some of 
its elements are regard for the things of the spirit, 
a lively sense of God and eternity, a perception of 
spiritual laws and relations, and a habit of being 
led by the Holy Spirit. The cultivation of the 
spiritual life is the most important thing the Chris- 
tian has to do. It is far more than the acquisition 
of property, or the development of the intellect, or 
the cultivation of social graces. Our spirituality is 
our fitness for heaven, the land of spirits. It is 
also the chief element of power for service in this 
world. It is that which gives us power with God 
in prayer, and power with men in presenting Christ. 

It is thought by many that it is impossible for 
one engaged in money-making to have much spirit- 
uality. We know that as a matter of fact most 
men get absorbed in their business pursuits and 
give little attention to the things of the spirit. 
And they excuse their lack of spiritual develop- 
ment, when they are conscious of it, on the ground 
that it is not consistent with proper attention to 



CONSECRATION 57 

their business. But everything depends on whether 
we consecrate our property to God and conduct 
our business for him. If we ignore his claims or 
consciously rob him, it is inevitable that we shall 
be worldly and unspiritual. One in either position 
is virtually cut off from God. He thus destroys 
the means by which the spiritual life can be devel- 
oped. He **lays up treasure for himself" and so 
cannot be "rich toward God." Our churches are 
full of spiritual dwarfs who have made themselves 
such by the worship of mammon. 

But one who consecrates his property does not 
suffer this loss. In the cultivation of spirituality 
he is at no disadvantage because of his absorption 
in business. That act, if consistently maintained, 
brings God into his life, and the busy money-maker 
walks in daily fellowship with the Most High. His 
chance for growth in spirituality is then as good 
as that of the Christian minister. The shop, 
the factory, the store, the office, or the farm, then 
becomes as holy as a church. It is generally 
agreed that giving is a means of grace ; but that is 
really true only when it is that kind of giving which 
treats God as the owner of all that we possess. If 
we dole out to him small amounts with the under- 
standing that we may use all the remainder as we 
please, we shall get no spiritual returns. That is 
no cure for the deadly, blighting worldliness to 



58 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

which the selfish money-getter yields himself. The 
only kind of giving that promotes spirituality is 
that kind which begins with the giving of self and 
property and business and continuously reckons all 
as belonging to God. One who does that will grow 
in spirituality and in every element of Christian 
character. It is thus that we ''make to ourselves 
friends of the mammon of unrighteousness " ; it is 
thus that we get "rich toward God." It is thus 
that a business life is made beautiful and divine. 

6. Consecration is the only way to attain power 
for Christian service. God will use that which is 
devoted to him ; he cannot use that which is with- 
held from him. The great reason why so many 
Christians have no power for service is that they 
are not consecrated. One reason why the money 
that goes into the Lord's treasury accomplishes so 
little for his cause in the world is that it is not con- 
secrated money. It is not given to the Lord but 
to **the church," or to "missions," or to some other 
institution. The giving is in no sense a personal 
transaction with him. The money comes out of 
an unconsecrated fund. Hence the Lord does not 
accept and bless and use it. There is a beautiful 
lesson for us in this matter in the miracle of the 
loaves and fishes. There was the great, famishing 
multitude ; there were the disciples, ordered to feed 
them, while they had nothing with which to do it ; 



CONSECRATION 59 

there were the five loaves and two fishes, which 
they procured from the boy standing by. No 
wonder they said, ''What are these among so 
many?" But in response to Jesus' order they 
brought them to him and the multitude was fed. 
Bring what you have to Jesus and get his blessing 
on it, and it will help to feed the hungry world. 
Money may thus be transmuted into spiritual power. 
Let it be offered in such a spirit that he can accept 
it, let it be the fruit of consecrated effort, let it come 
out of consecrated property, and you can be as- 
sured that it will promote the cause of Christ in the 
world. 

These are some of the reasons why we ought to 
consecrate our property to God. It will put us 
into our proper place as stewards of God ; it will 
give us right relations with him ; it will relieve us 
of much care and give us rest and peace ; it will 
promote our spirituality and increase our power for 
service. It will change money-getting from a base 
and worldly business to a divine calling. The 
spirit that moves us to this act will permeate every 
department of life and govern our every act. In 
this act of consecration our lives will be illumined 
and elevated by divine influences. All that is 
sordid and mean will go out of them, and we shall 
be able in some measure to reproduce the Hfe of 
Christ on earth. 



CHAPTER IV 

DISTRIBUTION 

THE consecration of property to God does not 
imply that it is all to be used for religious 
purposes. This is a mistake easily made by those 
who have been accustomed to divide life into the 
two departments of sacred and secular. The New 
Testament knows nothing of such a division, and 
to make it in thought and practice is thoroughly 
vicious in its effects upon Christian living. This 
misunderstanding of consecration prejudices many 
minds against it. Supposing that it means the de- 
votion of all they have to religious purposes, they 
feel an inward protest against the demand as im- 
practicable and even impossible. If such a de- 
mand were made, the protest would be just and 
proper; but that is as far as possible from being 
the case. While the teachings of the New Testa- 
ment were opposed to selfish worldliness, they are 
not contrary to ordinary common sense. The con- 
secration of our property to God simply means 
that it is to be used as he may direct. Surely no 
servant of God can object to that, for his will is 
just and right, and all his commands are given in 
60 



DISTRIBUTION 6 1 

love. He will not order us to use our property in 
any way that is not for our own highest good. We 
can be sure that he will have regard for all the de- 
mands of our nature as well as for the demands of 
his kingdom in the world. 

How shall we learn his will? Has it been so 
revealed that we can know it with regard to all the 
details of expenditure and of giving ? There may 
be difficulties in answering these questions, but the 
task is not impossible. We can learn the will of 
God concerning the use of property if we really 
desire to know it. We have four sources of in- 
formation : 

I. The words of Christ, who spoke by authority, 
and the words of men, who wrote by the inspira- 
tion and impulse of the Holy Spirit. These words 
were meant to be understood, and can be. They 
were spoken and written for our guidance. They 
are the source of final authority for the disciples of 
Christ. When fairly interpreted and applied we 
must obey them or lose our right to be called 
Christians. "Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do 
not the things which I say? " **Not every one that 
saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the king- 
dom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my 
Father which is in heaven." As the main purpose 
of this chapter is to explain and apply the teach- 
ings of the New Testament on the distribution of 



62 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

property, we pass on to notice other sources of in- 
formation on the subject. 

2. Fair inference from the general law of the 
Christian life enunciated by our Master. That law, 
as we have already seen, is the law of love. While 
we must not violate the law of love in the acquisi- 
tion of property, we must exemplify that law in 
the distribution of property. Money must be used 
as an instrument of love. If a fair-minded dis- 
ciple were in doubt as to the Christian use of any 
amount of money he might have to expend, he 
could ordinarily learn the will of Christ by asking 
what use of it love would prompt. For love is not 
a mere sentiment, it is a practical passion. *' But 
whoso hath the world's goods, and beholdeth his 
brother in need, and shutteth up his compassion 
from him, how doth the love of God abide in him? 
My little children, let us not love in word, neither 
with the tongue; but in deed and truth." Love 
will guide us where other light will fail. It will tell 
us when to give and when to withhold. 

3. The example of Christ. All admit that he is 
our pattern. *'He that saith he abideth in him 
oug-ht himself also to walk even as he walked." 
In our attempts at Christian living we should make 
much more of the example of Christ than we do. 
And yet, in trying to imitate him there is need of 
prudence and caution. Literal imitation is neither 



DISTRIBUTION 63 

possible nor desirable. If we attempt it in this 
matter, we shall be obliged to make a vow of per- 
petual .poverty. In that case we shall have no 
property to distribute, or we shall distribute it as 
fast as we earn it. We have already shown that 
this is not the force of his example. No such 
slavish imitation is meant by the command to follow 
him. 

The true way to get the force of his example is 
first to study carefully his life. Be sure that you 
apprehend the motive and spirit of that life. Sep- 
arate the governing law of his life from its details 
and circumstances. Put away from your thought 
what was unique and peculiar in his mission. Then 
ask yourself what he would do in your place, in 
your circumstances, with your mission to fulfill, and 
do that thing. To come to our specific subject, 
what would Christ do if he were in the world now, 
if he lived in your city or town, or on your farm, 
and owned property? How would he use his 
money? If he were a business man, how would he 
use the profits of his business? if he were a labor- 
ing man, what would he do with his wages? Sup- 
pose him at the same time to be in your circum- 
stances, obliged to support a family, or to educate 
children, or to provide simply for his own wants. 
If he had inherited property or acquired it in some 
other way, what would he do with the principal? 



64 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

If he invested it, how would' he use the income? 
An intelligent and obedient student of the hfe of 
Christ can so answer these questions as to get from 
his example safe rules for the use of consecrated 
property. They are natural and proper questions 
for a steward to ask. Christ owns all our property, 
and has told us to use it for him, saying, "Occupy 
till I come." We cannot be faithful stewards unless 
we ask with regard to every dollar of it, what would 
he do with it if he were here in our place? Thus 
only can we learn his mind with regard to the use 
of what belongs to him. 

4. The leadings of the Holy Spirit in answer to 
prayer. The main office of the Spirit is to reveal 
Christ. He so illumines the example of Christ 
that we are able to understand it. At the same 
time he gives direct guidance. He dwells in us as 
the inner Enlightener and Teacher. He enables 
us to apply the general principles of the word to 
the details of action. "He shall teach you all 
things," Jesus promised. "He will guide you into 
all truth. Suppose one is in honest doubt as to 
what he shall do with a certain sum of money. It 
hardly seems possible if he has consulted the in- 
spired word, the law of love, and the example of 
Christ ; but he might be. Then let him pray ; let 
him not take counsel of his own selfish heart, but 
let him inquire of God what his will is, and he will 



DISTRIBUTION 65 

be surely guided. If no specific direction is given, 
he will get new light on the general sources of in- 
formation and know the mind of the Lord. 

These four sources of information are abundant. 
Making the best use we can of them, let us try to 
interpret and apply the teaching of Christ and the 
Holy Spirit to the distribution of property. The 
subject falls naturally into five divisions. 

I. Communism, or the equal distribution of all 
property. It is claimed by some interpreters that 
Christ and the inspired apostles were socialists and 
that their ideal of human society was a commune. 
It must be admitted that some precepts of our Lord 
seem to teach that doctrine. Take for examples 
of this kind his words, ''Sell that ye have and give 
alms," and "give to him that asketh thee," and his 
instructions to the rich young ruler, "if thou 
wouldest be perfect, go, sell that thou hast and give 
to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven : 
and come, follow me." If these commands are to 
be interpreted literally, and applied to all Chris- 
tians, then no disciple of Christ can hold any prop- 
erty while others are in want, and one can never 
hold more than another. This position is strength- 
ened by the example of Christ, by the fact that the 
Twelve had a common purse, and by the commun- 
ism of the church at Jerusalem. "And all that be- 
lieved were together, and had all things common ; 

E 



66 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

and they sold their possessions and goods and 
parted them to all, according as any man had 
need." This seems to be a literal canying out of 
their Lord's precepts, and these Christians were 
apparently led by the Holy Spirit. Does their 
course of action make a law for all Christians ? 
We are here face to face with a serious problem. 
In the attempt to solve it we must move cautiously 
and seek light from every quarter. We must try 
to discover the mind of the Master. If by word 
of mouth and through the Spirit he taught that 
communism is the divine law of human society, we 
must not dismiss it as a visionary and impracticable 
scheme, but must set ourselves to obeying his 
instruction. 

Two things are to be noticed at the outset : 
First, that if Christ taught communism as the ideal 
of human society, it is an ideal which can be real- 
ized only in the church. He never intended that 
his followers should surrender their property to the 
wicked that the latter might squander it upon their 
vices or hoard it as an instrument of oppression. 
Even supposing that Christians have no rights, only 
duties, this would still be an absurd interpretation 
of his teaching. The law of love, which is central 
and fundamental in the Christian hfe, would forbid 
such a course. 

Secondly, if Christ taught communism and the 



DISTRIBUTION 6/ 

early Christians practised it, it was wholly volun- 
untary. It was not imposed upon the individual 
by the church. This is evident from what Peter 
said to Ananias with regard to his falsely repre- 
sented gift : "Whiles it remained, did it not remain 
thine own ? and after it was sold, was it not in thy 
power ? " That distribution of goods was not 
something which the church was requiring of its 
members. It is certain that Christ gave to no 
society — neither to Church nor State — authority to 
exact such a distribution from those who are mem- 
bers of it Much less did he give to some indi- 
viduals authority to impose this obligation upon 
others. It is flatly against the teaching of our 
Lord for one to insist upon communism in order 
that he may be a receiver of other people's goods. 

If communism is taught in the New Testament 
it amounts simply to this, that the disciples of 
Christ who have property are to divide it with 
others who have less or none, until there is sub- 
stantial equality. They may make this distribution 
directly, with their own hands, or they may put 
their property into a common fund to be distrib- 
uted by officers of the church. Is that the doc- 
trine of Christ? A fair interpretation of all he 
taught on the subject will show that it is not. 

The words, "Sell that ye have and give alms," 
were spoken to the Twelve and were part of the 



68 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

instruction which our Lord gave to prepare them for 
their special work as evangeHsts and missionaries. 
The command which the rich young ruler disobeyed 
was a test adapted to his particular case. Christ 
and the Twelve had a common purse, just as a 
company of travelers might have, for convenience 
in their peculiar circumstances ; but he never said 
or implied that this method of life must be adopted 
by persons living in settled homes and with families 
to support The communism of the church at 
Jerusalem was purely voluntary, as we have shown, 
and must have grown out of something peculiar 
in its circumstances, since it was a practice which 
does not seem to have been adopted by any other 
apostolic church. 

Jesus did not condemn private ownership. 
Neither he nor his apostles said one word against 
the right of Christian men to hold and use the 
property which they have gained by inheritance or 
by honest industry. Of course they hold it sub- 
ject to his orders ; but their right stands against 
all human claimants. While he showed clearly and 
forcibly the dangers of wealth, he said nothing to 
indicate that its possession is inconsistent with 
true piety. The family of Lazarus and Martha 
and Mary, at Bethany, was wealthy but they had 
his loving friendship and his evident approval. 
He does not rebuke them for luxury nor command 



DISTRIBUTION 69 

them to surrender their wealth. He commended 
and accepted Zaccheus because he gave up half, not 
the whole, of his goods to feed the poor. Accord- 
ing to all the traditions and the general belief, Nico- 
demus was a man of vast wealth ; but Jesus said 
nothing to him about surrendering or distributing 
it. To him he discoursed of the new birth, the 
love of God, the atonement, and salvation by faith. 
Though we cannot establish a doctrine by the ab- 
sence of utterances regarding it, it is fair to put 
several examples of this kind against that of the 
rich young ruler. 

There are other considerations which should 
have weight in forming our opinion. Property is a 
trust placed in the hands of men by the Owner of 
all things. What right has one man to transfer 
that trust and its responsibility to another ? When 
the master in the parable went away, he gave to 
one servant five talents, to another two, and to an- 
other one. Would it have been according to his 
will if they had immediately come together and 
made an equal distribution? Property is a trust 
which ought not to be transferred. 

Again, the doctrines and precepts of the New 
Testament are adapted to human nature. While 
they are intended to change it, they nevertheless 
take account of its constitution. So long as men 
are naturally lazy and selfish, they need the spur 



70 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

of want to make them industrious and enterprising. 
Let the average Christian suppose that he can, 
without shame to himself, draw on a common fund, 
and he has too great a temptation to idleness. To 
this it may be answered that the power of Christ 
can deliver from laziness and meanness, and that 
our system of the private ownership of property 
hinders his work by promoting pride and selfish- 
ness and worldliness. The objection has little 
force, because Christ does not make us perfect at 
once by a miracle of transformation, but leaves us 
in part to the discipline of Providence. Further- 
more, the dangers of individual ownership are 
wholly overcome by the consecration of our prop- 
erty to God. 

2. Personal expenditure. If the Christian has a 
right to control his own property, what shall he do 
with it ? How shall he expend his income ? Of 
course, he will not forget that he is a steward, and 
that he must seek orders from his Master. What 
is the will of Christ concerning the matter of per- 
sonal expenditure ? That is by no means an easy 
question to answer. Many Christians have no dif- 
ficulty in answering it, for the simple reason that 
they have all they can do to supply their real 
necessities. But how much shall those of larger 
income spend upon themselves ? Is it the will of 
Christ that his followers should hve in fine houses. 



DISTRIBUTION 7 1 

fill them with elegant and luxurious furniture, 
adorn them with costly works of art, and keep a 
retinue of servants to care for them ; that they 
should wear fashionable and expensive clothing, 
and bedeck themselves with jewels ; that they 
should keep horses and carriages, give costly par- 
ties, fare sumptuously every day at their tables, 
and that they should indulge in travel for mere 
sight-seeing, and in other pleasures which the world 
calls innocent? It is not a question of what kind 
of a life is considered desirable from a worldly or 
social point of view ; we are seeking to know the 
will of our Lord. It may not be easy to learn his 
will, but it certainly is not impossible. We must 
beware of dogmatic, off-hand judgments formed 
from narrow or one-sided views of the subject. 

The consideration of some obvious facts may 
aid us in our interpretation. It should be remem- 
bered that personal expenditure is largely relative. 
One thousand dollars a year will keep a family in 
comfort in village or rural communities ; the same 
sum in a city like New York would mean pinching 
poverty. We cannot estimate the luxury of living 
by its actual cost in money. People who get on 
very well in the country on a few hundreds a year 
consider the sums spent in their living by a rich 
city family as almost fabulous and wickedly extrava- 
gant. They are not prepared to judge because 



72 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

they do not know all the conditions. Again, let us 
remember that luxury is largely a matter of de- 
grees. In one sense, anything that goes beyond 
necessary provision for bare existence may be re- 
garded as a luxury. A family can live in one 
room ; its members can sleep on straw beds spread 
on the floor ; they will not starve with bread and 
potatoes to eat ; one suit of clothes a year will cover 
one's nakedness if it is kept well mended. Is any- 
thing beyond such meagre provision forbidden be- 
cause it will be a luxury? We cannot so interpret 
the teaching of Christ. For the mind and heart 
need provision as well as the body, and to some 
extent their improvement is dependent upon ma- 
terial surroundings. A heroic and beautiful life 
may be lived in squalid poverty ; but to live it in 
such circumstances is beyond the average Christian. 
A comfortable home, good sanitary conditions, 
some household decorations, wholesome food and 
proper clothing, books, magazines, and papers, op- 
portunities for the young to be educated, and some 
social privileges, are necessities for the best kind 
of living. But beyond these, who shall fix the limit 
of expenditure? Only the Lord Jesus has the right 
to do it. 

Again, one may have a fine home and all its ap- 
purtenances without intending to use them selfishly. 
A family may have more rooms and servants than 



DISTRIBUTION 73 

they care for, in order that they may exercise gen- 
erous hospitality. They may adorn their homes 
with works of art, not alone to please their own 
eyes, nor yet for vain display, but to give pleasure 
to those to whom their doors are thrown open. 
And their guests for an evening or for months may 
be those who really need such entertainment. 
Many an invalid Christian, or broken-down minis- 
ter, or returned missionary, has found a haven of 
rest in such a home. An evening in such a home 
has been a bright spot in the life of many a poor, 
hard-working person. Is expenditure for an elegant 
home to be used for such purposes forbidden by 
the law of Christ? We can hardly believe that it 
is. And yet if the purpose in making such a home 
were ninety-nine parts selfishness and one part love, 
as it might easily be, it would not meet with his 
approval. 

Laying aside all prejudice, let us look at the 
words of Christ and of the Spirit. In the parable 
of Dives and Lazarus, nothing is said against the 
moral character of the rich man. It is not asserted 
that he gained his wealth by fraud or oppression. 
A superficial examination might leave the impres- 
sion that our Lord meant to condemn him simply 
because he was rich. **Now there was a certain 
rich man, and he was clothed in purple and fine 
linen, faring sumptuously [living in mirth and splen- 



74 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

dor] every day. . . And the rich man died and 
was buried. And in Hades he lifted up his eyes, 
being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and 
Lazarus in his bosom." It is a brief sketch, but 
fearfully graphic. What was this man's offense? 
What had he done to condemn him to future tor- 
ments? There is only one thing. His faring sump- 
tuously, his living in mirth and splendor every day, 
while there was a beggar at his gate. And is it not 
a most graphic picture of the rich of our age, who 
spend their money in selfish indulgence and in vain 
display while thousands are in want, while millions 
struggle for a bare existence, and while the world 
perishes for the want of the gospel which could be 
carried to them by the surplus money of professing 
Christians? Surely the beggar is at our gate, and 
he wants more than food for his body, and pro- 
fessed disciples of Christ who ''fare sumptuously 
every day" and disregard the beggar's needs, will 
hereafter find themselves in company with Dives. 
This we believe to be the proper application of the 
parable to the present age. 

In that powerful arraignment of the rich from 
the pen of James, among the charges brought against 
them by the Spirit is this : "Ye have lived delicately 
on the earth, and taken your pleasure ; ye have 
nourished your hearts in a day of 'slaughter." To 
those who live in this way he has already said, "Go 



DISTRIBUTION 75 

to now, ye rich, weep and howl for your miseries 
that are coming upon you." They will have their 
time for pleasure, as Dives had his, but their ''day 
of slaughter" is already at hand. What a solemn 
warning to those who live ''delicately" and take 
their "pleasure" while those who have made their 
wealth are suffering ! It is a warning much needed 
by wealthy Christians who live in luxury. 

When Paul was writing to the Christians at 
Corinth about offerings for their poor brethren at 
Jerusalem, he used these words : "For I say not 
this, that others may be eased, and ye distressed, 
but by equality ; your abundance being a supply 
at this present time for their want, that their abun- 
dance also may become a supply for your want" 
(supposing the conditions at some future time to be 
reversed) ; "that there may be equality : as it is 
written. He that gathered much had nothing over ; 
and he that gathered little had no lack." The 
obvious thought of the Spirit here is that there 
shall be substantial equality of condition among 
Christians in their daily living. One is not to live 
in luxury while another lives in want. This 
"brotherly equalization" is not communism. Paul 
does not say that they must divide all their posses- 
sions until every one, both in Corinth and at Jeru- 
salem, holds a*n equal amount of property; but 
that there should be for all an equal supply of their 



"J^ CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

wants. The superabundance of some is to meet 
the lack of others. And . this law of brotherhood 
goes beyond the local church and includes the 
whole family of God's redeemed children. It is 
not socialism that is meant The underlying prin- 
ciple of socialism is that every one shall be com- 
pelled to divide with every other ; here the equal- 
ization is to be voluntary, prompted by love. It is 
a free gift from those who have ; not the answer to 
a demand from those who have not. The apostle 
does not command them ; he appeals to them by 
the example of Christ. He says, "For ye know 
the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he 
was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that 
ye through his poverty might become rich." He 
feels that they ought not to need any other motive 
to induce them to equalize their supplies with their 
poorer brethren. 

These three passages make it plain that it is 
utterly unchristian for some of the children of God 
to live in selfish luxury and worldly display while 
others are in want. But there are other reasons, de- 
ducible from the teaching of the New Testament, 
why Christians should live plainly and deny them- 
selves in the matter of personal expenditure. It is 
required by the law of love. That law forbids us 
to use any possession for mere selfish gratification. 
Love has other and hig^her uses for what it controls. 



DISTRIBUTION 7/ 

Love in us means self-denial because our powers 
are limited. What we spend in selfish gratification 
we cannot use for the good of others. Love does 
not ask how much may I spend upon myself and 
how little can I give, but how little ought I to 
spend upon myself and how much can I give. 
And the example of our Lord enforces this. He 
became poor that he might make others rich. He 
never used his powers for selfish gratification. One 
who has any understanding of the life and charac- 
ter of our Lord, cannot imagine him living in our 
age, possessed of great wealth and spending it, or 
the income of it, in selfish luxury and worldly dis- 
play. To think of him on earth living as many 
rich church-members live, as many pastors and 
church dignitaries live, would take away entirely 
his character as Saviour and pattern. By what 
right do we put ourselves above our Lord in the 
matter of self-indulgence? **It is enough for the 
servant that he be as his Lord " ; why, then, should 
his followers pattern after the world ? 

In this connection it is worth while to notice a 
specious argument which has ensnared many 
wealthy Christians. They argue that when they 
spend money in luxurious living they are really 
doing good with it. If a rich man builds a splen- 
did mansion for himself and his family those who 
gather the material and those who put up the 



78 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

structure are benefited by the expenditure. When 
he buys furniture and works of art for his house, 
delicacies for his table, fine dresses and jewels for 
his wife and daughters, and ponies and boats and 
bicycles for his boys, he is scattering his money 
among manufacturers, farmers, and tradespeople, 
who really need it. The more servants he keeps, 
the larger the number of those who live upon his 
income. Christian ladies defend the immense 
amount of labor put upon their dress by arguing 
that it gives work to the poor. Is it not the truest 
charity to give work to those that need it? 

From a worldly and business point of view this 
is a good argument. A man who sees only the 
material and present may in this way defend lavish 
expenditure on his living. We grant that so long 
as money is not used for indulgence in destructive 
vices, it is better to spend it than to hoard it. But 
let us look at this argument in the light of Christ's 
example and teaching. Why did he not go to 
work in that way to benefit the poor? Why did 
not he set up a great establishment at Jerusalem 
and hire a lot of servants to work for him instead 
of working at the carpenter's bench in Nazareth ? 
The speciousness of the argument lies in the fact 
that as a rule such expenditure of money is purely 
selfish. It is used to defend a style of living already 
adopted from selfish motives. If the motive is to 



DISTRIBUTION 79 

give others work and scatter our money, why not 
employ them in labor that will benefit humanity 
and advance the cause of Christ? Instead of pay- 
ing them to minister to our vanity and pride and 
carnal appetites, why not pay them to be mission- 
aries, teachers, nurses, and ministering visitors to 
the destitute? The same number of persons could 
be employed and the rich would thus show that 
they were planning ''to minister and not to be 
ministered unto," after the pattern of Christ If it 
is objected that those whom the rich employ as 
servants are not fitted for higher work, the answer 
is, Take them while they are young and give them 
education and training which will fit them for it. 
Let the rich use their money to prepare first and 
then employ servants for Christ rather than for 
themselves if they would follow him. 

The Christian law of personal expenditure as 
deduced from the words of the Master and from 
the principle of love is that we should spend upon 
ourselves only that which will make us better serv- 
ants of the Lord. We may use for ourselves out 
of the Lord's money whatever is necessary to main- 
tain our health and vigor, to improve our minds, 
and to develop our spiritual life. We may make 
for our families homes that will be comfortable and 
pleasant. We may clothe ourselves so that we 
shall not seem peculiar or be repulsive to others. 



80 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

We may spend money to give our children pleasure 
and to educate them for life's duties. These are 
general principles beyond which a Christian can- 
not go. When we come to details of application, 
much must be left to the individual understanding of 
the Master's will. ''Who art thou that judgest the 
servant of another ? to his own lord he standeth or 
falleth." Two things, however, are perfectly clear. 

First, the loyal disciple will not waste his Lord's 
money. He will not spend it for that which brings 
no good result. If the expenditure does not pro- 
mote, directly or indirectly, the cause of Christ — 
if it does not make any one better or more useful 
— it is forbidden the Christian. As examples of 
such waste, we may mention the payment of money 
for tobacco by men and for many articles of per- 
sonal adornment by women. Smoking costs a 
great deal of money. What conceivable good 
does it do ? How does it promote the cause of 
Christ? How can this expenditure be brought 
under the law of love ? The same unanswerable 
questions may be asked with regard to many ar- 
ticles of personal adornment for which Christian 
women pay vast sums of money. These are but 
examples of waste. Faithfulness as stewards would 
cut off many other kinds of personal expenditure. 

Secondly, in view of the opportunities , which 
Christians have to do good with their money, it 



DISTRIBUTION 8 1 

is impossible that those who would follow Christ 
should squander it in luxury and self-indulgence. 
The law of Christ is that need establishes a claim. 
Surely there is to-day great need of money in pro- 
moting Christian enterprises. Millions are without 
knowledge of the gospel of Christ, and millions 
more are without proper instruction in the way of 
life. All around us are people who need help of 
one kind or another — help which the money of 
Christians could give them. In view of these facts, 
how can loyal disciples of Christ spend large sums 
of money for their own pleasure, even though it be 
pleasure of a high order? The time may come 
when Christians can properly live in luxury, but 
that time is not yet. The needs of a lost world 
are too great. The calls for higher and nobler uses 
of money are too urgent. 

3. Hoarding. This subject is properly treated 
in this connection, as hoarding is a form of self- 
gratification. "We make a clear distinction between 
hoarding and accumulation of property. We have 
shown that the latter is justifiable ; the former is 
always wrong. It is important just here "to give 
attention to definition." Accumulation is the ac- 
quisition of property to be used as an instrument 
of beneficent power. At least two forms of it are 
consistent with loyalty to Christ. A Christian man 
may acquire money to be used as capital in his 



82 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

business. He may make that business as large as 
possible, so long as he carries it on for the Lord 
and does not allow it to draw him away from per- 
sonal Christian duties. Furthermore, he may make 
reasonable provision for his family and those de- 
pendent upon him. If he knows that his business 
will stop at his death, he may rightly invest money, 
the income of which will support them in that event. 
It is a Christian man's duty to provide for his fam- 
ily. ''If any provideth not for his own, and spe- 
cially for his own household, he hath denied the 
faith, and is worse than an unbeliever." What 
form that provision shall take must be left to the 
individual conscience and judgment in the circum- 
stances. If he has reason to expect that a time 
will come when he can no longer be a producer, 
he may make suitable provision for his own old age. 
There is no word of Christ or of the Spirit which 
teaches us to plan for dependence upon others if 
we can avoid it. 

What then is hoarding ? It is laying up money 
beyond one's prospective needs. It is storing it 
for the mere sake of possession. It is amassmg a 
fortune simply to gratify one's pride or sense of 
power. We can make it clear by examples. Sup- 
pose a man has already made provision for the 
probable needs of his family and for his own old 
age. His income from his business and his invest- 



DISTRIBUTION 83 

merits is ten thousand dollars a year. His living 
costs only half of that, and he does not care to put 
more capital into his business. What shall he do 
with the surplus ? If he simply adds it, or any 
part of it, to his investments, he is guilty of hoard- 
ing. Suppose a Christian woman who has inherited 
from her parents or from her husband a fortune 
safely invested. The income from it is more than 
enough to supply her reasonable wants. What 
shall she do with the surplus income ? If she adds 
it to her capital, she is guilty of hoarding. Why 
should she add anything to that which already more 
than supplies her needs ? 

This was the special sin of the rich fool. "And 
he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground 
of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully ; and 
he reasoned within himself, saying, What shall I 
do because I have not where to bestow my fruits ? 
And he said. This will I do : I will pull down my 
barns and build greater ; and there I will bestow 
all my corn and my goods. And I will say to my 
soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many 
years ; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. 
But God said unto him, Thou foolish one, this 
night is thy soul required of thee ; and the things 
which thou hast prepared, whose shall they be?" 
This man gains his riches not by fraud or oppres- 
sion, not by scheming or trickery, but by the 



84 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

blessing of God. They are the fruits of his ground. 
He has far more than he needs ; his ground re- 
mains and he may reasonably expect it to bring 
forth for his future wants ; what shall he do with 
the present surplus ? His final decision to hoard 
it no doubt met the approval of his neighbors, but 
it was that decision which made God call him a 
fool. He had opportunity to do good ; love would 
have prompted him to do it ; a spiritual sense 
would have shown him that he could lay up treas- 
ures in heaven. But he was selfish, worldly, and 
covetous, and so he hoarded his wealth. **So is 
every one that layeth up treasures for himself and 
is not rich toward God." Hoarding is the worst 
form of covetousness. It proceeds from the love 
of money for its own sake. It is mammon wor- 
ship pure and simple. 

Is it right for a Christian to lay up money for 
his children ? Yes ; within certain limits. It is 
right to provide for their education. It is right to 
give them a start in business or to set them up in 
housekeeping. If they are likely to be unable to 
care for themselves after the death of their parents, 
it is right to provide for their full support. But 
the history of rich families shows the utter folly of 
hoarding for children in order that they may in- 
herit fortunes. Even in this world they are gener- 
ally better off when they have to make their own 



DISTRIBUTION 85 

way. Unless they are converted and consecrated, 
their money is Hkely to be a curse to them. If the 
children are brought to Christ, trained in his serv- 
ice, and taught to give, it is safe to leave them 
large sums of money, but not otherwise. A Chris- 
tian has no right to put the Master's property into 
the hands of those who will not use it for him, 
even though they are his own children. After 
reasonable provision is made for their wants, faith- 
fulness in stewardship requires that the surplus be 
turned over directly to the Master. 

4. Charity. We use this word to designate 
strictly benevolent uses of money. We protest 
against calling it charity to give money to the 
church or to Christian missions or to any strictly 
religious object. God is not a mendicant and his 
cause is not a begging cause. Charity is the relief 
of physical and temporal wants. It may go be- 
yond the care of the body and give opportunities 
for recreation and mental improvement to those 
who cannot make such provision for themselves. 

A large part of the New Testament is devoted 
to this subject. Both our Lord and the Holy 
Spirit have spoken upon it with great emphasis 
and frequent repetition. Of the passages quoted 
in the first chapter of this discussion, no less than 
fourteen directly enjoin gifts of charity. It will be 
well to repeat a few of the more striking. 'Sell 



86 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

that ye have and give alms." ''He that hath two 
coats, let him impart to him that hath none ; and 
he that hath food let him do likewise." ** Give to 
him that asketh thee, and from him that would 
borrow of thee turn not thou away." "Charge 
them that are rich in this present world, that they 
do good, that they be rich in good works, that 
they be ready to distribute, willing to communi- 
cate," that is, willing to divide. The poor also are 
to give, for we read, " Let him that stole steal no 
more : but rather let him labour, working with his 
hands the thing that is good, that he may have 
whereof to give to him that hath need." "In all 
things I gave you an example, how that so labour- 
ing we ought to help the weak." "But whoso 
hath the world's goods, and beholdeth his brother 
in need, and shutteth up his compassion from him, 
how doth the love of God abide in him?" 

The prominence of this subject in the word is 
due to two causes. First, this practical charity was 
the best expression of that brotherhood which was 
to exist among Christians. It would be the visible 
evidence that they were heeding the command of 
Christ to love one another. It was a "new com- 
mandment," one that the world had not dreamed 
of, much less practised. In obeying it Christians 
would relieve suffering, enrich their own souls, 
and bear witness to the world that there is power 



DISTRIBUTION 8/ 

in Christ to save men from cruelty and selfish- 
ness. 

Secondly, the prominence of charity over other 
forms of giving in the teachings of the word is due 
to the special needs growing out of social conditions 
in ancient times and unto this day in the East. In 
Palestine, and all over the Roman Empire, the 
dependent classes were very large. Sickness and 
widowhood and orphanage were common. The 
poorer classes were plundered by tax-gatherers, or 
robbed by marauding bands, or saw their property 
destroyed by war. The wages of laborers were 
scanty and a few days of enforced idleness meant 
positive want. In the early history of Christianity, 
a confession of faith in Christ often meant the loss 
of employment and sometimes the loss of all 
worldly goods. Local famines were not infrequent. 
The extent and degree of destitution in the best 
of times can scarcely be conceived by an inhabi- 
tant of this land of plenty and safety. In such 
conditions it was natural that the duty of caring 
for the poor, and especially the poor of the church, 
should be made very prominent. Such conditions 
do not exist among us and the demand for mere 
physical relief is relatively less. These facts must 
be borne in mind as we study the subject. 

But Jesus said, **The poor ye have always with 
you," and we must try to understand and obey his 



88 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

commands concerning what we shall do for them. 
Are we bound to obey literally such a command as, 
"Give to him that asketh thee?" To do so in 
many cases would be to violate the law of love. 
Suppose one asks for money in order that he may 
spend it upon his vices. If you know his purpose, 
it would certainly be wrong to give it to him. 
Suppose one asks for knife or poison with which to 
do some murderous deed. It would make you a 
participant in his crime to grant his request. Sup- 
pose one asks for food or clothing in order that he 
may live in idleness or vagabondage. To give to 
such a one is only to confirm him in his vicious 
habits. While doing him an apparent benefit it is 
really doing him a serious injury. Furthermore, it 
is contrary to the express teaching of the word, 
**If any will not work, neither let him eat." We 
must not sacrifice love to sentimentalism. We 
have no right to make and foster criminals by false 
charity. Our Heavenly Father does not give ever}^- 
thing that is asked of him ; and it does not make 
us unlike him to refuse to give when we know the 
results will be evil. Refusing is often nobler 
charity than giving. The law of love requires that 
we should never give material goods to those whose 
moral character will be injured by our gifts. To 
whom and in what circumstances then shall we 
give? Persons who are willing to work are some- 



DISTRIBUTION 89 

times forced to be idle. They may be sick or 
there may be no work to be found. Low wages 
and heavy expenses in the past may have made it 
impossible for them to accumulate anything. Then 
they should be helped with gifts or loans or the 
provision of employment. There are vast numbers 
of dependent persons whose kindred cannot or 
will not provide for them. Such persons are 
orphaned children, the fatherless and widows, the 
children of drunkards and other vicious persons, 
the sick, and the aged and infirm who have no 
income. These are always objects of charity. 
How shall we exercise it? As I wish to confine 
the discussion to the use of money, we shall have 
to omit 'all consideration of the best form of 
charity, namely personal service, sympathy, 
counsel, and instruction. 

Christians should remember that their brethren 
and sisters in the Lord have the first claim upon 
their charity. The churches must first care for 
their own destitute poor. **As we have oppor- 
tunity let us work that which is good toward all 
men, and especially toward them that are of the 
household of faith." It is '* ministering to the 
saints" that Paul enjoins upon the Corinthian 
Christians. The niggardly way in which many 
rich churches care for their own poor is a reproach 
to Christianity. There ought to be a large *'fel- 



go CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

lowship fund" for this purpose in every church. 
And there will ahvays be calls for private bene- 
factions to our brethren and sisters in Christ. It is 
not mere clannishness or narrowness to provide 
first for our own, but a proper expression of Chris- 
tian fellowship. A Christian in want on the other 
side of the world has a greater claim upon us than 
a worldling in want close at hand. A second rea- 
son for this is that worldlings would be likely to 
abuse our charity. A third reason is that in nomi- 
nally Christian lands the world makes some provi- 
sion for its own poor. Christians who have prop- 
erty are taxed with other citizens for this purpose. 
If in addition to that they care well for needy 
members of their churches, it may be questioned 
whether any more ought to be expected of them. 
It is certain that if needy Christians were properly 
supported by their churches it would be an exhi- 
bition of brotherhood that would have great 
power with the world and would go far to remove 
prejudices against the churches which are now so 
bitter among poor people. 

But we cannot limit our charity to church-mem- 
bers. While they have the first claim, we must 
commend the gospel of Christ by doing good to 
all men as we have opportunity. At the same 
time, we must beware of mere *'humanitarianism." 
We must not let it be supposed that the main pur- 



DISTRIBUTION 9 1 

pose of Christianity is to supply physical needs. 
We must not spend our resources in caring for the 
bodies of the lost so that we shall have nothing left 
with which to care for their souls. How much 
of his income a Christian ought to spend in charity 
and what forms his charity shall take must depend 
upon circumstances and upon the leadings of the 
Spirit. The forms of charity in our age are so 
many and so varied that we cannot attempt here 
to name or describe them. Immediate physical 
necessities brought to our knowledge must always 
be supplied. If the need is among our own 
brethren, it is impossible to evade or shirk the duty 
without guilt. If it is among others, every Chris- 
tian must judge of his share of the responsibility. 
The extent of it will depend upon his ability and 
upon other claims on his property. It is a beauti- 
ful charity to take homeless children and make 
them our own and care for them in our homes. It 
is a charity which will certainly win the approval of 
Him who took little children in his arms and blessed 
them. The homes of childless Christians whose 
means will allow it ought to be filled with homeless 
children. It is as good for the adopting parents as 
it is for the adopted children. The establishment 
and maintenance of orphanages, homes for chil- 
dren, and free kindergartens, of hospitals and dis- 
pensaries, of public libraries, free reading rooms, 



92 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

lecture halls and pleasant places of resort for the 
people, are noble forms of charity. The employ- 
ment of physicians and nurses for the poor when 
they are sick in their own homes, and of persons 
to teach their children how to do manual work, is 
often a good use of money. In cities there is a 
demand for the erection of good tenements which 
may be rented to the poor on terms within their 
reach. The establishment of a fund to be placed 
in the hands of trustees from which in an emergency 
the poor could borrow without interest but on 
reasonable security, would do much to relieve the 
distress into which even the industrious and frugal 
may fall at times. In these and in many other 
ways can Christians of wealth exercise charity. 
How much better to use the Lord's money for such 
purposes than to spend it in selfish indulgence and 
luxury ! Can any one doubt which form of ex- 
penditure will win the plaudit, "Well done, good 
and faithful servant," when the Master returns for 
the great reckoning? 

5. Religious purposes. Suppose a Christian has 
performed the sacred and important duty of con- 
secrating himself and his property to the Lord ; 
what portion of his income shall he devote to re- 
ligious purposes? The obligation to devote some 
portion of it to such purposes is unmistakable. 

Upon the people of God rests the responsibility 



DISTRIBUTION 93 

of maintaining public worship. This duty was im- 
posed upon the Hebrews, was transferred to Chris- 
tians, and has never been questioned by the great 
mass of God's people. It is the divine law that 
Christians shall support pastors and preachers. 
'• Know ye not that they which minister about 
sacred things eat of the things of the temple, and 
they which wait upon the altar have their portion 
with the altar? Even so did the Lord ordain that 
they which proclaim the gospel should live of the 
gospel." It was in connection with preaching that 
Jesus said, **The labourer is worthy of his hire." 
"Let him that is taught in the word communicate 
unto him that teacheth in all good things." " Let 
the elders that rule well be counted worthy of 
double honour, especially those who labour in the 
word and in teaching. For the Scripture saith. 
Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth 
out the corn. And, The labourer is worthy of his 
hire." 

The obligation to send the gospel to all the world 
is laid upon Christians. When Jesus said, as his 
final command, ** Go ye into all the world and 
preach the gospel to every creature," or as Matthew 
reports it, " Go ye, therefore, and make disciples 
of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of 
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost : 
teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I 



94 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

have commanded you," he did not mean that the 
apostles alone were to do it. It is an obligation 
which rests equally upon every Christian until the 
work is completed. The work of evangelizing the 
world is dependent upon the gifts of Christians. 
Those who go to proclaim the gospel must be sup- 
ported. As a rule it is utterly impracticable for 
them to earn their own living while they preach 
Christ and teach their converts the principles of the 
Christian life. The churches are called to support 
those who are called of God to be evangelists and 
missionaries. We need have no difficulty about 
knowing the will of the Lord in this m.atter, for he 
has spoken with extraordinary plainness. No com- 
mand that he ever gave is more explicit, universal, 
and imperative. 

If we are Christians we are like Christ. The 
very name implies a resemblance. We have not 
only taken him for our pattern ; he is our life and 
we are growing into his likeness by virtue of his 
presence in us. Now the regnant principle or 
motive of his life was love for the lost It was that 
motive which brought him into the world as the 
first missionary. His love went out to the needy 
and induced him to give himself for them. He 
taught us the great, divine law that need establishes 
a claim. The greatest need of humanity is that 
redemption from sin of which they learn in the 



DISTRIBUTION * 95 

gospel. Paul recognized this obligation when he 
said, " I am debtor both to Greeks and Barbarians, 
both to the wise and the foolish. So, as much as 
in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you 
also that are in Rome." He would give all there 
was in him to this work in the hope that he might 
pay his debt. Any one who would be like Christ, 
any one who has a quickened sense of the world's 
greatest need, must feel deeply impressed with his 
duty to do all he can to save the perishing. No 
obligation of brotherhood or of charity presses 
upon Christians with such weight as this obligation 
to send the gospel to the lost. What we give to 
evangelize the world measures our sense of this ob- 
ligation. 

Again, large gifts to this cause which is so dear 
to the heart of Christ may serve to express our 
gratitude to him. He said, " Freely ye have re- 
ceived, freely give." Our redemption from sin and 
death, our present peace and joy and strength, 
our hope of being glorified, all that we are and all 
that we expect to be, we owe to him who died for 
our sins, who rose for our justification, and who 
ever liveth to make intercession for us. There is 
only one way in which we can pay this debt of grat- 
itude. We can do nothing for Christ in his own 
person. He has passed beyond the reach of our 
poor ministrations. But we can pay him by saving 



96 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

those he died to save. His last order was that we 
are to pay the debt w^e owe him to those who need 
salvation. If we do not obey, it will show that we 
are too ungrateful to recognize the greatest possible 
cause of gratitude. Jesus said, "If a man love me, 
he will keep my word." Our gifts to carry on his 
work will be the measure of our love for him. He 
wants our love, he deserves it, he has earned it. 

It is evidently the will of the Master that a large 
proportion of our income should be devoted to re- 
ligious purposes. Have we any rule by which to 
determine how large a portion? Can we know 
the mind of the Master in this respect ? 

The Jew was expected to give one-tenth of his 
income for the support of the temple worship and 
the maintenance of the priests. Beyond that the 
devout Jew made special offerings to the Lord. 
He knew nothing of ''foreign missions," or mis- 
sions of any kind, and felt no obligation to give the 
Gentile nations knowledge of the true God. With 
our greater reasons for gratitude and our stronger 
obligations, a Christian ought to do as well as a 
Jew, and if he can find no higher law, devote at 
least one-tenth of his income to strictly religious 
purposes. But Ave find no proof that this is the 
law for Christians. Our Lord gave no definite in- 
structions in the matter. The gifts which he com- 
manded or approved were not based on this rule. 



DISTRIBUTION 9/ 

but went far beyond it. The rich young ruler he 
commanded to give all that he had. Zaccheus he 
approved for giving half his goods. He defended 
Mary in her act of pouring out upon him the pre- 
cious ointment worth at that time from three hun- 
dred to five hundred dollars of our money. His 
highest praise was given to a poor widow who gave 
to the Lord all that she had, "even all her living." 
Surely here is no law of tenths, but a higher law, 
the law of love. 

It can easily be shown that the two laws are not 
consistent with each other. The principles we have 
discovered in the word relating to consecration and 
to personal expenditure show that what we keep 
and spend upon ourselves or hoard up, is a better 
measure of our love for Christ than what we give 
to him. The poor widow kept nothing for herself, 
and our Lord immortalized her as the greatest of 
givers. 

Let us look at the law of tenths from this point 
of view. Here are two Christians, one of whom 
has an income of ten thousand dollars a year, and 
the other of one thousand. We will suppose that 
each has about the same calls for personal expen- 
diture. Apply to them the law of tenths, and the 
former will give to religious purposes one thousand 
dollars a year, and keep for himself nine thousand ; 
the latter will give one hundred and keep nine 



gS CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

hundred. It is a law which allows to one ten times 
as much out of the Lord's money as it allows to 
the other for personal expenditure or for hoarding. 
Does the Master deal thus with his stewards ? It 
is a law which requires no self-sacrifice of one and 
great self-sacrifice of the other. The man with ten 
thousand dollars a year can give one-half of it to 
religious purposes and still be five times better off 
than his poorer brother. If we look upon gifts to 
the Lord as a tax, we must fix upon a percentage ; 
but God is not a tax gatherer ; he receives offer- 
ings of love. 

A Christian may be placed in circumstances such 
that it is not the will of the Master that one-tenth 
of his income should be used for strictly religious 
purposes. The demands of his family, or of other 
dependents, may be such for a time that the Lord 
will tell him to use all his money for them. He 
may make his offerings to the Lord on the altar of 
such benefactions as well as on the altar of religious 
service. But after the special stress is past a loving 
and devout heart will find a way to devote some- 
thing to the extension of the kingdom in the world. 

The Christian rule of giving, as laid down by the 
Spirit, is that each one is to give *' as he may 
prosper." Giving is to be according to ability. 
Every Christian who has an income should devote 
some fixed portion of it to refigious purposes. This 



DISTRIBUTION 99 

giving should not be left to impulse or caprice. 
The ordinary haphazard giving is dishonoring to 
God. Many professing Christians treat God as 
they do their dogs and cats ; they give to his serv- 
ice what may be left over after their own wants 
are all supplied. The true way to give is first to 
recognize the fact that we and our property belong 
to God. Then, deliberately, prayerfully, consider- 
ing all the claims upon us, and seeking especially 
to know the will of the Master, we should decide 
what portion of our income ought to be used for 
religious purposes. For one Christian it may be 
one-tenth, and those cases are rare in which it 
should be less ; for another it may be one-fifth, and 
for another one-half As a rule the larger the in- 
come the larger the proportion which should be 
devoted to religious purposes. Those rich church- 
members who reverse this rule show that they need 
to be converted from self to Christ. And those 
poor Christians — poor in every sense of the word — 
who will give nothing because they cannot give 
much, need to learn some lessons of humility and 
love. 

What shall those Christians do who have no in- 
come which they can call their own ? Such are 
married women who have no independent property, 
and children who are wholly supported by their 
parents. If possible let them get a stated allow- 



100 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

ance for their personal expenses, and set aside a 
portion of that for the Lord's work. In some cases 
they can earn money, all of which can go to the 
Lord, since their support is provided for by husband 
or parents. What shall they do whose income is 
irregular and uncertain ? Such are professional 
men, who live on fees, and laboring people who 
work as they have employment. Certainly they 
cannot make pledges far in advance as to what 
they will do for different objects, but they can obey 
literally the apostolic injunction to put aside every 
week a certain amount for the Lord as they have 
been prospered. Many persons cannot tell in ad- 
vance what a year's income will be, but after a few 
years of experience they can strike an average, and 
make their division from that. And always it 
should be the gross income that is reckoned, not 
the profits, or the income after one's living has been 
deducted from it. 

We repeat that it is important to devote a fixed 
portion of the income to religious purposes. Our 
love for the Lord is fickle, and if we leave this 
matter to impulse, before we are aware of it sel- 
fishness will have control and we shall be spending 
the Lord's money on ourselves. And the money 
devoted to this purpose should be set aside. It 
should be put in a box, or bag, or drawer by itself, 
or kept in a separate bank account. Let every man 



DISTRIBUTION lOl 

who has a bank account try this plan. Suppose 
your name is John Howard. Then the money you 
intend to use in your business or for Uving expenses 
you will deposit in your own name. But the money 
devoted to rehgious purposes you will deposit to 
the credit of John Howard, steward, and as you 
draw it for church or missions or any form of re- 
ligious work, you will sign your checks in that 
way. But whether the money is thus put aside or 
not, we ought to keep a careful account of what 
we give to the Lord. We are apt to deceive our- 
selves and think we are very liberal because now 
and then we put in the collection a dollar for mis- 
sions or for charity, when if we added up what we 
have given in the course of a year, we would find 
it pitiably small compared with what we have spent 
needlessly on ourselves. An account book would 
show many a Christian how little he loves the Lord, 
and how much he loves himself 

Having decided on the portion of the income to 
be used for religious purposes, the next thing is to 
divide it among the different objects which may 
properly be regarded as belonging to the agencies 
for the extension of Christ's kingdom among men. 
Some of them are our own church, foreign mis- 
sions, home missions, State missions, city missions, 
the printing and distribution of Bibles, tracts, and 
religious books, and Christian education. The 



102 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

relative amount to be given to each must be deter- 
mined by circumstances. A member of a large 
and wealthy church, with its building and equip- 
ment all provided, should give more for missions 
than for the support of his own church. A small 
and poor church might have the first claim upon 
the gifts of its members. In every case it should 
be remembered that all our property is to be used 
for the extension and upbuilding of Christ' king- 
dom on the earth and that the larger gifts should 
go where there is the greater need. Of course it 
requires some measure of intelligence to make a 
proper distribution of our gifts. A Christian 
should inform himself with regard to these different 
agencies and their relative claims. If he is not 
able to do that let him consult his pastor or some 
other well-informed person and obtain advice. We 
must not expect to be miraculously guided until 
we have exhausted the natural means of gaining 
information. 

Having consecrated all our property to God and 
devoted a certain portion of it to religious pur- 
poses, our giving will gain those qualities which 
will make it acceptable to him. It will be a per- 
sonal transaction with Christ. We shall give *'as 
unto the Lord." It will be cheerful. We shall 
give " not grudgingly, or of necessity : for God 
loveth a cheerful giver." The word here tranS' 



DISTRIBUTION IO3 

lated "cheerful" means hilarious or joyous, and 
nothing can make giving a joy except the sense 
that it is *'unto the Lord" who hath redeemed us, 
and "whose we are and whom we serve." It will 
be liberal. The consciousness that we are stewards 
and that the Lord has simply put property into 
our hands to be administered for him will go far to 
cure selfishness and cause us to use a large portion 
of it for his work. We shall do this not through 
slavish fear but because we love him and feel hon- 
ored by the fact that he has entrusted us with his 
property. We take pride in being faithful to an 
earthly master or employer for the sake of loyalty 
alone ; we can be faithful to Christ for the sake of 
love and loyalty. We can make giving an act of 
worship, if we remember that we are offering that 
to him which is his own. The kind of giving 
which makes God a mendicant, dishonors him be- 
fore the world and degrades him in our thought. 
It is only when we recognize his universal owner- 
ship that giving becomes an act of worship. 

This method of using the propeiiy which the 
Lord commits to us will have most blessed results 
and rewards. It would be a pleasure to dwell 
upon them at length, but space can be spared only 
for brief mention of a few of them. 

I. It will shut off all illegitimate means of gaining 
wealth. No one can be dishonest, or oppressive, 



I04 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

or greedy for gain, while he is doing business for 
the Lord. It will be a safeguard against all those 
dangers to which "they that will be rich" are ex- 
posed. It will sanctify and uplift secular business, 
and give every one engaged in it a sense that he 
has "a high calling." 

2. It will fill our souls with joy and peace and 
comfort. God will come to us in our daily walk 
and we shall never be without a sense of the Divine 
presence. Jesus said, ** Ye cannot serve God and 
mammon." The Spirit said, "If any man love the 
world the love of the Father is not in him." Noth- 
ing drives God from us like devotion to money. 
But if we consecrate all to him he will abide with 
us and bless us. He will guide us in the right way 
and keep us in his blessed fellowship. 

3. This treatment of property will make us "rich 
toward God." By consecrating our property to 
him and giving largely of it for his work we can 
transmute it into holy character. "The liberal soul 
shall be made fat ; and he that watereth shall be 
watered also himself" "Give and it shall be given 
unto you ; good measure, pressed down, shaken 
together, running over, shall they give into your 
bosom." Thus our Lord heaps up phrases to show 
the great and blessed rewards of giving. The 
Spirit speaks of it as a kind of spiritual seed-sow- 
ing. " He which soweth sparingly shall reap also 



DISTRIBUTION IO5 

sparingly, and he which soweth bountifully shall 
reap also bountifully. . . And God is able to make 
all grace abound towards you ; that ye, always hav- 
ing all sufficiency in all things, may abound to 
every good work." True giving is an exercise of 
self-denial, of love, of faith, and these graces grow 
by exercise. The more we give the more like 
Christ we shall become. 

4. This kind of giving is laying up treasure in 
heaven. Jesus said, " Make to yourselves friends 
out of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when 
it shall fail they may receive you into eternal tab- 
ernacles." He meant that we are so to use our 
property that when it is no longer possible for us 
to hold any we shall have riches in heaven. His 
command shows that it is possible. The souls our 
money has been instrumental in saving will be there 
to make heaven glorious for us. The poor saints 
whose distress we have relieved will be there to 
thank and love us. Our Lord will reward us for 
what we have done for his people exactly as though 
we had done it for him. The increased capacity 
for enjoyment which service has here given will 
enable us to appreciate heaven. Cross-bearing 
with Christ in this life will fit us for crown-wearing 
with Christ in the life to come. The only money 
saved is that which is given to the Lord. He is a 
safe banker. What we ''save" we must lose at 



I06 CHRISTIANITY AND PROPERTY 

death ; what we have given to Christ we shall find 
again increased a thousand-fold and transmuted by 
the alchemy of the sanctifying Spirit into spiritual 
gold and silver for our eternal enrichment. 



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